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BOOK    2  1  1.7.B6  13G    c.  1 

BLATCHFORD    #    GOD    AND    MY    NEIGHBOR 


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GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 


GOD    AND 
MY    NEIGHBOR 


ROBERT  BLATCHFORD 

EDITOR  OF  THE  CLARION,  LONDOK 


CHICAGO 

CHARLES  H.  KERR  &  COMPANY 

1914 


JOHN    F.  HIGGINS 

PRINTCR  AND  BINDER 
80 


376-382    MONROE  STREET 
CHICAGO.     ILLINOIS 


TO 

MY  SON 
ROBERT  CORRI  BLATCHFORD 

THIS  BOOK  IS  DEDICATED 


PREFACE 

INFIDEL! 

I  put  the  word  in  capitals,  because  it  is  my  new  name, 
and  I  want  to  get  used  to  it. 
Infidel  I 

The  name  has  been  bestowed  on  me  by  several  Chris- 
tian gentlemen  as  a  reproach,  but  to  my  ears  it  has  a 
quaint  and  not  unpleasing  sound. 

Infidel !  "  The  notorious  Infidel  editor  of  the  Clarion  " 
is  the  form  used  by  one  True  Believer.  The  words  re- 
curred to  my  mind  suddenly,  while  I  was  taking  my  fa- 
vorite black  pipe  for  a  walk  along  "  the  pleasant  Strand," 
and  I  felt  a  smile  glimmer  within  as  I  repeated  them. 

Which  is  worse,  to  be  a  Demagogue  or  an  Infidel?  I 
am  both.  For  while  many  professed  Christians  contrive 
to  serve  both  God  and  Mammon,  the  depravity  of  my  na- 
ture seems  to  forbid  my  serving  either. 

It  was  a  mild  day  in  mid  August,  not  cold  for  the  time 
of  year.  I  had  been  laid  up  for  a  few  days,  and  my 
back  was  unpropitious,  and  I  was  tired.  But  I  felt  very 
happy,  for  so  bad  a  man,  since  the  sunshine  was  clear  and 
genial,  and  my  pipe  went  as  easily  as  a  dream.  ^ 

Besides,  one's  fellow-creatures  are  so  amusing:  espe- 
cially in  the  Strand.  I  had  seen  a  proud  and  gorgeously 
upholstered  lady  lolling  languidly  in  a  motor  car,  and 
looking  extremely  pleased  with  herself  — not  without 
reason;  and  I  had  met  two  successful  men  of  great  pres- 
ence, who  reminded  me  somehow  of  ''  Porkin  and  Snob  "  ; 
and  I  had  noticed  a  droll  little  bundle  of  a  baby,  in  a 

7 


8  PREFACE 

fawn  colored  woolen  suit,  with  a  belt  slipped  almost  to 
her  knees,  and  sweet  round  eyes  as  purple  as  pansies, 
who  was  hunting  a  rolling  apple  amongst  "  the  wild 
mob's  million  feet";  and  I  had  seen  a  worried-looking 
matron  frantically  waving  her  umbrella  to  the  driver  of 
an  omnibus,  endanger  the  silk  hat  of  Porkin,  and  disturb 
the  complacency  of  Snob ;  and  I  felt  glad. 

It  was  at  that  moment  that  there  popped  into  my  head 
the  full  style  and  title  I  had  earned.  ''  Notorious  Infidel 
editor  of  the  Clarion!  '^  These  be  brave  words,  indeed. 
For  a  moment  they  almost  flattered  me  into  the  belief 
that  I  had  become  a  member  of  the  higher  criminal 
classes :  a  bold  bad  man,  like  Guy  Fawkes,  or  Kruger,  or 
R.  B.  Cunninghame-Graham. 

"  You  ought,"  I  said  to  myself,  "  to  dress  the  part. 
You  ought  to  have  an  S.D.F.  sombrero,  a  slow  wise 
Fabian  smile,  and  the  mysterious  trousers  of  a  Soho  con- 
spirator." 

But  at  the  instant  I  caught  a  sight  of  my  counterfeit 
presentment  in  a  shop  window,  and  veiled  my  haughty 
crest.  That  a  notorious  Infidel !  Behold  a  dumpy,  com- 
fortable British  paterfamilias  in  a  light  flannel  suit  and  a 
faded  sun  hat.  No;  it  will  not  do.  Not  a  bit  like 
Mephisto:  much  more  like  the  Miller  of  the  Dee. 

Indeed,  I  am  not  an  irreligious  man,  really;  I  am 
rather  a  religious  man ;  and  this  is  not  an  irreligious,  but 
rather  a  religious  book. 

Such  thoughts  should  make  men  humble.  After  all, 
may  not  even  John  Burns  be  human ;  may  not  Mr.  Cham- 
berlain himself  have  a  heart  that  can  feel  for  another? 

Gentle  reader,  that  was  a  wise  as  well  as  a  charitable 
man  who  taught  us  there  is  honor  among  thieves;  al- 
though, having  never  been  a  member  of  Parliament  him- 
self, he  must  have  spoken  from  hearsay. 


PREFACE  9 

"  For  all  that,  Robert,  you're  a  notorious  Infidel."  I 
paused  —  just  opposite  the  TivoH  —  and  gazed  moodily 
up  and  down  the  Strand. 

As  I  have  remarked  elsewhere,  I  like  the  Strand.  It 
is  a  very  human  place.  But  I  own  that  the  Strand  lacks 
dignity  and  beauty,  and  that  amongst  its  varied  odors  the 
odor  of  sanctity  is  scarce  perceptible. 

There  are  no  trees  in  the  Strand.  The  thoroughfare 
should  be  wider.  The  architecture  is,  for  the  most  part, 
banal.  For  a  chief  street  in  a  Christian  capital,  the 
Strand  is  not  eloquent  of  high  national  ideals. 

There  are  derelict  churches  in  the  Strand,  and  dingy 
blatant  taverns,  and  strident  signs  and  hoardings;  and 
there  are  slums  hard  by. 

There  are  thieves  in  the  Strand,  and  prowling  vagrants, 
and  gaunt  hawkers,  and  touts,  and  gamblers,  and  loitering 
failures,  with  tragic  eyes  and  wilted  garments ;  and  pros- 
titutes plying  for  hire. 

And  east  and  west,  and  north  and  south  of  the  Strand, 
there  is  London.  Is  there  a  man  amongst  all  London's 
millions  brave  enough  to  tell  the  naked  truth  about  the 
vice  and  crime,  the  misery  and  meanness,  the  hypocrisies 
and  shames  of  the  great,  rich,  heathen  city?  Were  such 
a  man  to  arise  amongst  us  and  voice  the  awful  truth, 
what  would  his  reception  be  ?  How  would  he  fare  at  the 
hands  of  the  Press,  and  the  Public  —  and  the  Church  ? 

As  London  is,  so  is  England.  This  is  a  Christian 
country.  What  would  Christ  think  of  Park  Lane,  and 
the  slums,  and  the  hooligans?  What  would  He  think  of 
the  Stock  Exchange,  and  the  Music  Hall,  and  the  race- 
course? What  would  He  think  of  our  national  Ideals? 
What  would  He  think  of  the  House  of  Peers,  and  the 
Bench  of  Bishops,  and  the  Yellow  Press  ? 

Pausing  again,  over  against  Exeter  Hall,  I  mentally 


BO  PREFACE 

apostrophize  the  Christian  British  people.  ''  Ladies  and 
Gentlemen,"  I  say,  "you  are  Christian  in  name,  but  I 
discern  little  of  Christ  in  your  ideals,  your  institutions,  or 
your  daily  lives.  You  are  a  mercenary,  self-indulgent, 
frivolous,  boastful,  blood-guilty  mob  of  heathen.  I  like 
you  very  much,  but  that  is  what  you  are.  And  it  is  you 
—  you  who  call  men  "  Infidels."  You  ridiculous  crea- 
tures, what  do  you  mean  by  it? 

If  to  praise  Christ  in  words,  and  deny  Him  in  deeds, 
be  Christianity,  then  London  is  a  Christian  city,  and 
England  is  a  Christian  nation.  For  it  is  very  evident  that 
our  common  English  ideals  are  anti-Christian,  and  that 
our  commercial,  foreign,  and  social  affairs  are  run  on 
anti-Christian  lines. 

Renan  says,  in  his  Life  of  Jesus,  that  "  were  Jesus  to 
return  amongst  us  He  would  recognize  as  His  disciples, 
not  those  who  imagine  they  can  compress  Him  into  a  few 
catechismal  phrases,  but  those  who  labor  to  carry  on  His 
work." 

My  Christian  friends,  I  am  a  Socialist,  and  as  such 
believe  in,  and  work  for,  universal  freedom,  and  universal 
brotherhood,  and  universal  peace. 

And  you  are  Christians,  and  I  am  an  **  Infidel." 

Well,  be  it  even  so.  I  am  an  "  Infidel,"  and  I  now  ask 
leave  to  tell  you  why. 


FOREWORDS 

It  is  impossible  for  me  to  present  the  whole  of  my  case 
in  the  space  at  my  command ;  I  can  only  give  an  outline. 
Neither  can  I  do  it  as  well  as  it  ought  to  be  done,  but 
only  as  well  as  I  am  able. 

To  make  up  for  my  shortcomings,  and  to  fortify  my 
case  with  fuller  evidence,  I  must  refer  the  reader  to 
books  written  by  men  better  equipped  for  the  work 
than  I. 

To  do  justice  to  so  vast  a  theme  would  need  a  large 
book,  where  I  can  only  spare  a  short  chapter,  and  each 
large  book  should  be  written  by  a  specialist. 

For  the  reader's  own  satisfaction,  then,  and  for  the 
sake  of  justice  to  my  cause,  I  shall  venture  to  suggest  a 
list  of  books  whose  contents  will  atone  for  all  my  failures 
and  omissions.  And  I  am  justified,  I  think,  in  saying 
that  no  reader  who  has  not  read  the  books  I  recommend, 
or  others  of  like  scope  and  value,  can  fairly  claim  to  sit 
on  the  jury  to  try  this  case. 

And  of  these  books  I  shall,  first  of  all,  heartily  recom- 
mend the  series  of  cheap  sixpenny  reprints  now  pub- 
lished by  the  Rationalist  Press  Association,  Johnson's 
Court,  London,  E.G. 

R.P.A.  Reprints 

Huxley's  Lectures  and  Essays. 
Tyndall's  Lectures  and  Essays. 
Laing's  Human  Origins. 

Laing's  Modern  Science  and  Modern  Thought, 
Qodd's  Pioneers  of  Evolution. 
Matthew  Arnold's  Literature  and  Dogma. 
II 


(la  FOREWORDS 

Haeckel's  Riddle  of  the  Universe. 
Grant  Allen's  Evolution  of  the  Idea  of  God. 
Cotter  Morrison's  Service  of  Man, 
Herbert  Spencer's  Education. 

Some  Apologists  have,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  attempted  to 
disparage  those  excellent  books  by  alluding  to  them  as 
"  Sixpenny  Science  "  and  "  Cheap  Science."  The  same 
method  of  attack  will  not  be  available  against  most  of  the 
books  in  my  next  list: 

The  Golden  Bough,  Frazer.    Macmillan,  36s. 

The  Legend  of  Perseus,  Hartland.    D.  Nutt,  25s. 

Christianity  and  Mythology,  Robertson.    Watts,  8so 

Pagan  Christs,  Robertson.    Watts,  8s. 

Supernatural  Religion,  Cassel.    Watts,  6s. 

The  Martyrdom  of  Man,  Winwood  Reade.     Kegan  Paul,  6s. 

Mutual  Aid,  Kropotkin.    Heinemann,  7s.  6d. 

The  Story  of  Creation,  Godd.    Longmans,  3s.  6d. 

Buddha  and  Buddhism,  Lillie.    Clark,  3s.  6d. 

Shall  We  Understand  the  Bible?    Williams.     Black,  is. 

What  is  Religion?    Tolstoy.    Free  Age  Press,  6d. 

What  I  Believe,  Tolstoy.    Free  Age  Press,  6d. 

The  Life  of  Christ,  Renan.    Scott,  is.  6d. 

I  also  recommend  Herbert  Spencer's  Principles  of  So- 
ciology, and  Lecky's  History  of  European  Morals. 

Of  pamphlets  there  are  hundreds.  Readers  will  get 
full  information  from  Watts  &  Co.,  17  Johnson's  Court, 
London,  E.C. 

I  can  warmly  recommend  The  Miracles  of  Christian 
Belief  and  The  Claims  of  Christianity,  by  Charles  Watts, 
and  Christianity  and  Progress,  a  penny  pamphlet,  by  G. 
W.  Foote  (The  Freethought  Publishing  Company). 

I  should  also  like  to  mention  An  Easy  Outline  of  Evo- 
lution, by  Dennis  Hird  (Watts  &  Co.,  2s.  6d.).  This 
book  will  be  of  great  help  to  those  who  want  to  scrape 
acquaintance  with  the  theory  of  evolution. 

Finally,  let  me  ask  the  general  reader  to  put  aside  all 
prejudice,  and  give  both  sides  a  fair  hearing.     Most  of 


FOREWORDS  13 

the  books  I  have  mentioned  above  are  of  more  actual 
value  to  the  public  of  to-day  than  many  standard  works 
which  hold  world-wide  reputations. 

No  man  should  regard  the  subject  of  religion  as  de- 
cided for  him  until  he  has  read  The  Golden  Bough.  The 
Golden  Bough  is  one  of  those  books  that  unmake  history. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface vii 

Forewords xi 

The  Sin  of  Unbelief 17 

One  Reason 24 

What  I  Can  and  Cannot  Believe  .     , 25 

The  Old  Testament  — 

Is  the  Bible  the  Word  of  God? 35 

The  Evolution  of  the  Bible 51 

The  Universe 60 

Jehovah 69 

Bible  Heroes 81 

The  Book  of  Books 92 

Our  Heavenly  Father 99 

Prayer  and  Praise 106 

The  New  Testament  — 

The  Resurrection 113 

Gospel  Witnesses 119 

The  Time  Spirit 132 

Have  the  Documents  been  Tampered  with?    .     .     .     .135 

Christianity  before  Christ 139 

Other  Evidences 149 

The  Christian  Religion  — 

What  is  Christianity? 155 

Determinism  — 

Can  Men  Sin  against  God? 165 


i6  CONTENTS 

Christian  Apologies —  page 

Christian  Apologies 187 

Christianity  and  Civilization 193 

Christianity  and  Ethics 197 

The  Success  of  Christianity 205 

The  Prophecies 209 

The  Universality  of  Religious  Belief  .......  211 

Is  Christianity  the  Only  Hope? 213 

Spiritual  Discernment 218 

Some  other  Apologies ,     .     .  226 

Counsels  of  Despair 229 

Conclusion  — 

The  Parting  of  the  Ways 237 


,   GOD  AND   MY    NEIGHBOR 

THE  SIN  OF  UNBELIEF 

Huxley  quotes  with  satirical  gusto  Dr.  Wace's  declara- 
tion as  to  the  word  ''  Infidel."  Said  Dr.  Wace :  "  The 
word  infidel,  perhaps,  carries  an  unpleasant  significance. 
Perhaps  it  is  right  that  it  should.  It  is,  and  it  ought 
to  be,  an  unpleasant  thing  for  a  man  to  have  to  say 
plainly  that  he  does  not  believe  in  Jesus  Christ." 

Be  it  pleasant  or  unpleasant  to  be  an  unbeliever,  one 
thing  is  quite  clear:  religious  people  intend  the  word 
Infidel  to  carry  "  an  unpleasant  significance  "  when  they 
apply  to  it  one.  It  is  in  their  minds  a  term  of  reproach. 
Because  they  think  it  is  wicked  to  deny  what  they  beheve. 
To  call  a  man  Infidel,  then,  is  tacitly  to  accuse  him  of 
a  kind  of  moral  turpitude. 

But  a  little  while  ago,  to  be  an  Infidel  was  to  be  so- 
cially taboo.  But  a  little  while  earlier,  to  be  an  Infidel 
was  to  be  persecuted.  But  a  little  earlier  still,  to  be  an 
Infidel  was  to  be  an  outlaw,  subject  to  the  penalty  of 
death. 

Now,  it  is  evident  that  to  visit  the  penalty  of  social 
ostracism  or  public  contumely  upon  all  who  reject  the 
popular  religion  is  to  erect  an  arbitrary  barrier  against 
intellectual  and  spiritual  advance,  and  to  put  a  protective 
tariff  upon  orthodoxy  to  the  disadvantage  of  science  and 
free  thought. 

The  root  of  the  idea  that  it  is  wicked  to  reject  the 


i8  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

popular  religion  —  a  wickedness  of  which  Christ  and 
Socrates  and  Buddha  are  all  represented  to  have  been 
guilty  —  thrives  in  the  belief  that  the  Scriptures  are  the 
actual  words  of  God,  and  that  to  deny  the  truth  of  the 
Scriptures  is  to  deny  and  to  affront  God. 

But  the  difficulty  of  the  unbeliever  lies  in  the  fact  that 
he  cannot  believe  the  Scriptures  to  be  the  actual  words 
of  God. 

The  Infidel,  therefore,  is  not  denying  God's  words, 
nor  disobeying  God's  commands :  he  is  denying  the  words 
and  disobeying  the  commands  of  men. 

No  man  who  knew  that  there  was  a  good  and  wise 
God  would  be  so  foolish  as  to  deny  that  God.  No  man 
would  reject  the  words  of  God  if  he  knew  that  God 
spoke  those  words. 

But  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  origin  of  the  Scriptures 
rests  upon  the  authority  of  the  Church;  and  the  differ- 
ence between  the  Infidel  and  the  Christian  is  that  the 
Infidel  rejects  and  the  Christian  accepts  the  authority 
of  the  Church. 

Belief  and  unbelief  are  not  matters  of  moral  excel- 
lence or  depravity :  they  are  questions  of  evidence. 

The  Christian  believes  the  Scriptures  because  they  are 
the  words  of  God.  But  he  believes  they  are  the  words 
of  God  because  some  other  man  has  told  him  so. 

Let  him  probe  the  matter  to  the  bottom,  and  he  will 
inevitably  find  that  his  authority  is  human,  and  not,  as 
he  supposes,  divine. 

For  you,  my  Christian  friend,  have  never  seen  God. 
You  have  never  heard  God's  voice.  You  have  received 
from  God  no  message  in  spoken  or  written  words.  You 
have  no  direct  divine  warrant  for  the  divine  authorship 
of  the  Scriptures.    The  authority  on  which  your  belief 


THE  SIN  OF  UNBELIEF  ig 

in  the  divine  revelation  rests  consists  entirely  of  the 
Scriptures  themselves  and  the  statements  of  the  Church. 
But  the  Church  is  composed  solely  of  human  beings, 
and  the  Scriptures  v^ere  v^ritten  and  translated  and 
printed  solely  by  human  beings. 

You  believe  that  the  Ten  Commandments  v^ere  dic- 
tated to  Moses  by  God.  But  God  has  not  told  you  so. 
You  only  believe  the  statement  of  the  unknown  author 
of  the  Pentateuch  that  God  told  him  so.  You  do  not 
know  v^ho  Moses  was.  You  do  not  know  who  wrote 
the  Pentateuch.  You  do  not  know  who  edited  and  trans- 
lated the  Scriptures. 

Clearly,  then,  you  accept  the  Scriptures  upon  the  au- 
thority of  unknown  men,  and  upon  no  other  demonstrable 
authority  whatever. 

Clearly,  then,  to  doubt  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  rev- 
elation of  the  Scriptures  is  not  to  doubt  the  word  of 
God,  but  to  doubt  the  words  of  men. 

But  the  Christian  seems  to  suspect  the  Infidel  of  reject- 
ing the  Christian  religion  out  of  sheer  wantonness,  or 
from  some  base  or  sinister  motive. 

The  fact  being,  that  the  Infidel  can  only  believe  those 
things  which  his  own  reason  tells  him  are  true.  He 
opposes  the  popular  religion  because  his  reason  tells 
him  it  is  not  true,  and  because  his  reason  tells  him 
insistently  that  a  religion  that  is  not  true  is  not  good, 
but  bad.  In  thus  obeying  the  dictates  of  his  own  reason, 
and  in  thus  advocating  what  to  him  seems  good  and 
true,  the  Infidel  is  acting  honorably,  and  is  as  well 
within  his  right  as  any  Pope  or  Prelate. 

That  base  or  mercenary  motives  should  be  laid  to  the 
charge  of  the  Infidel  seems  to  me  as  absurd  as  that  base 
or  mercenary  motives  should  be  laid  to  the  charge  of 


20  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

the  Socialist.  The  answer  to  such  Hbels  stares  us  in 
the  face.  Socialism  and  Infidelity  are  not  popular,  nor 
profitable,  nor  respectable. 

If  you  wish  to  lose  caste,  to  miss  preferment,  to  en- 
danger your  chances  of  gaining  money  and  repute,  turn 
Infidel  and  turn  SociaHst. 

Briefly,  Infidelity  does  not  pay.  It  is  "  not  a  pleasant 
thing  to  be  an  Infidel." 

The  Christian  thinks  it  his  duty  to  "  make  it  an  un- 
pleasant thing "  to  deny  the  "  true  faith."  He  thinks 
it  his  duty  to  protect  God,  and  to  revenge  His  outraged 
name  upon  the  Infidel  and  the  Heretic.  The  Jews 
thought  the  same.  The  Mohammedan  thinks  the  same. 
How  many  cruel  and  sanguinary  wars  has  that  pre- 
sumptuous belief  inspired?  How  many  persecutions, 
outrages,  martyrdoms,  and  massacres  have  been  perpe- 
trated by  fanatics  who  have  been  "  jealous  for  the 
Lord"? 

As  I  write  these  lines  Christians  are  murdering  Jews 
in  Russia,  and  Mohammedans  are  murdering  Christians 
in  Macedonia  to  the  glory  of  God.  Is  God  so  weak  that 
He  needs  foolish  men's  defense?  Is  He  so  feeble  that 
He  cannot  judge  nor  avenge? 

My  Christian  friend,  so  jealous  for  the  Lord,  did  you 
ever  regard  your  hatred  of  "  Heretics  "  and  "  Infidels  " 
in  the  light  of  history? 

The  history  of  civilization  is  the  history  of  successions 
of  brave  "  Heretics  "  and  "  Infidels,"  who  have  denied 
false  dogmas  or  brought  new  truths  to  light. 

The  righteous  men,  the  "  true  believers  "  of  the  day, 
have  cursed  these  heroes  and  reviled  them,  have  tor- 
tured, scourged,  or  murdered  them.  And  the  children 
of  the  "  True  Believers  "  have  adopted  the  heresies  as 


THE  SIN  OF  UNBELIEF  21 

true,  and  have  glorified  the  dead  Heretics,  and  then 
turned  round  to  curse  or  murder  the  new  Heretic  who 
fain  would  lead  them  a  little  further  toward  the  light. 

Copernicus,  who  first  solved  the  mystery  of  the  Solar 
System,  was  excommunicated  for  heresy.  But  Chris- 
tians acknowledge  now  that  the  earth  goes  round  the 
sun,  and  the  name  of  Copernicus  is  honored. 

Bruno,  who  first  declared  the  stars  to  be  suns,  and 
"  led  forth  Arcturus  and  his  host,"  was  burnt  at  the 
stake  for  heresy. 

Galileo,  the  father  of  telescopic  astronomy,  was  threat- 
ened with  death  for  denying  the  errors  of  the  Church, 
was  put  in  prison  and  tortured  as  a  heretic.  Christians 
acknowledge  now  that  Galileo  spoke  the  truth,  and  his 
name  is  honored. 

As  it  has  been  demonstrated  in  those  cases,  it  has  been 
demonstrated  in  thousands  of  other  cases,  that  the  Her- 
etics have  been  right,  and  the  True  Believers  have  been 
wrong. 

Step  by  step  the  Church  has  retreated.  Time  after 
time  the  Church  has  come  to  accept  the  truths,  for  telling 
which  She  persecuted,  or  murdered,  her  teachers.  But 
still  the  True  Believers  hate  the  Heretic,  and  regard  it 
as  a  righteous  act  to  make  it  "  unpleasant "  to  be  an 
"  Infidel." 

After  taking  a  hundred  steps  away  from  old  dogmas 
and  towards  the  truth,  the  True  Believer  shudders  at 
the  request  to  take  one  more.  After  two  thousand  years 
of  foolish  and  wicked  persecution  of  good  men,  the 
True  Believer  remains  faithful  to  the  tradition  that  it 
"  ought  to  be  an  unpleasant  thing  "  to  expose  the  errors 
of  the  Church. 

The  Christians  used  to  declare  that  all  the  millions 


22  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

of  men  and  women  outside  the  Christian  Church  would 
"  burn  forever  in  burning  Hell."  They  do  not  like  to 
be  reminded  of  that  folly  now. 

They  used  to  declare  that  every  unbaptized  baby  would 
go  to  Hell  and  burn  forever  in  fire  and  brimstone. 
They  do  not  like  to  be  reminded  of  that  folly  now. 

They  used  to  believe  in  witchcraft,  and  they  burned 
millions  —  yes,  millions  —  of  innocent  women  as  witches. 
They  do  not  like  to  hear  of  witchcraft  now. 

They  used  to  believe  the  legends  of  Adam  and  Eve, 
and  the  Flood.     They  call  them  allegories  now. 

They  used  to  believe  that  the  world  was  made  in  six 
days.     Now  they  talk  mildly  about  "  geological  periods." 

They  used  to  denounce  Darwinism  as  impious  and 
absurd.  They  have  since  "  cheerfully  accepted "  the 
theory  of  evolution. 

They  used  to  believe  that  the  sun  revolved  round  the 
earth,  and  that  he  who  thought  otherwise  was  an  Infidel, 
and   would  be   damned  in   the   "  bottomless   pit."     But 

now !     Now  they  declare  that  Christ  was  God,  and 

His  mother  a  virgin ;  that  three  persons  are  one  person ; 
that  those  who  trust  in  Jesus  shall  go  to  Heaven,  and 
those  who  do  not  trust  in  Jesus  will  be  "  lost."  And  if 
any  one  denies  these  statements,  they  call  him  Infidel. 

Are  you  not  aware,  friend  Christian,  that  what  was 
Infidelity  is  now  orthodoxy?  It  is  even  so.  Heresies 
for  which  men  used  to  be  burned  alive  are  now  openly 
accepted  by  the  Church.  There  is  not  a  divine  Hving 
who  would  not  have  been  burned  at  the  stake  three  cen- 
turies ago  for  expressing  the  beliefs  he  now  holds.  Yet 
you  call  a  man  Infidel  for  being  a  century  in  advance 
of  you.  History  has  taught  you  nothing.  It  has  not 
occurred  to  you  that  as  the  "  infidelity  "  of  yesterday  has 


THE  SIN  OF  UNBELIEF  23 

become  the  enlightened  religion  of  to-day,  it  is  possible 
that  the  ''  infidelity  "of  to-day  may  become  the  enlight- 
ened religion  of  to-morrow. 

Civilization  is  built  up  of  the  "  heresies  "  of  men  who 
tht>ught  freely  and  spoke  bravely.  Those  men  were 
called  "  Infidels  "  when  they  were  aUve.  But  now  they 
are  called  the  benefactors  of  the  world. 

Infidel!  The  name  has  been  borne,  good  Christian, 
by  some  of  the  noblest  of  our  race.  I  take  it  from  you 
with  a  smile.  I  am  an  easiful  old  pagan,  and  I  am  not 
angry  with  you  at  all  —  you  funny  little  champion  of 
the  Most  High. 


ONE  REASON 

I  HAVE  been  asked  why  I  have  opposed  Christianity.  I 
have  several  reasons,  v^hich  shall  appear  in  due  course. 
At  present  I  offer  one. 

I  oppose  Christianity  because  it  is  not  true. 

No  honest  man  will  ask  for  any  other  reason. 

But  it  may  be  asked  why  I  say  that  Christianity  is  not 
true;  and  that  is  a  very  proper  question,  which  I  shall 
do  my  best  to  answer. 


WHAT  I  CAN  AND  CANNOT  BELIEVE 

I  HOPE  it  will  not  be  supposed  that  I  have  any  personal 
animus  against  Christians  or  Christian  ministers,  al- 
though I  am  hostile  to  the  Church.  Many  ministers  and 
many  Christian  laymen  I  have  known  are  admirable  men. 
Some  I  know  personally  are  as  able  and  as  good  as  any 
men  I  have  met;  but  I  speak  of  the  Churches,  not  of 
individuals. 

I  have  known  Catholic  priests  and  sisters  who  were 
worthy  and  charming,  and  there  are  many  such;  but  I 
do  not  like  the  Catholic  Church.  I  have  known  Tories 
and  Liberals  who  were  real  good  fellows,  and  clever 
fellows,  and  there  are  many  such;  but  I  do  not  like  the 
Liberal  and  Tory  parties.  I  have  known  clergymen  of 
the  Church  of  England  who  were  real  live  men,  and 
real  English  gentlemen,  and  there  are  many  such;  but  I 
do  not  like  the  Church. 

I  was  not  always  an  Agnostic,  or  a  Rationalist,  or 
an  "  Infidel,"  or  whatever  Christians  may  choose  to  call 
me. 

I  was  not  perverted  by  an  Infidel  book.  I  had  not 
read  one  when  I  wavered  first  in  my  allegiance  to  the 
orthodoxies.  I  was  set  doubting  by  a  religious  book 
written  to  prove  the  "  Verity  of  Christ's  Resurrection 
from  the  Dead."  But  as  a  child  I  was  thoughtful,  and 
asked  myself  questions,  as  many  children  do,  which  the 
Churches  would  find  it  hard  to  answer  to-day. 

I  have  not  ceased  to  believe  what  I  was  taught  as  a 
child  because  I  have  grown  wicked.    I  have  ceased  to 


26  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

believe  it  because,  after  twenty  years'  hard  thinking,  I 
cannot  believe  it. 

I  cannot  believe,  then,  that  the  Christian  religion  is 
true. 

I  cannot  believe  that  the  Bible  is  the  word  of  God. 
For  the  word  of  God  would  be  above  criticism  and  be- 
yond disproof,  and  the  Bible  is  not  above  criticism  nor 
beyond  disproof. 

I  cannot  believe  that  any  religion  has  been  revealed 
to  Man  by  God.  Because  a  revealed  religion  would  be 
perfect,  but  no  known  religion  is  perfect;  and  because 
history  and  science  show  us  that  known  religions  have 
not  been  revealed,  but  have  been  evolved  from  other 
religions.  There  is  no  important  feature  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion  which  can  be  called  original.  All  the  rites, 
mysteries,  and  doctrines  of  Christianity  have  been  bor- 
rowed from  older  faiths. 

I  cannot  believe  that  Jehovah,  the  God  of  the  Bible,  is 
the  Creator  of  the  known  universe.  The  Bible  God, 
Jehovah,  is  a  man-made  God,  evolved  from  the  idol  of 
an  obscure  and  savage  tribe.  The  Bible  shows  us  this 
quite  plainly. 

I  cannot  believe  that  the  Bible  and  the  Testament  are 
historically  true.  I  regard  most  of  the  events  they  re- 
cord as  fables,  and  most  of  their  characters  as  myths. 

I  cannot  believe  in  the  existence  of  Jesus  Christ,  nor 
Buddha,  nor  Moses.  I  believe  that  these  are  ideal  char- 
acters constructed  from  still  more  ancient  legends  and 
traditions. 

I  cannot  believe  that  the  Bible  version  of  the  relations 
of  man  and  God  is  correct.  For  that  version,  and  all 
other  religious  versions  known  to  me,  represents  man 
as  sinning  against  or  forsaking  God,  and  God  as  punish- 
ing or  pardoning  man. 


WHAT  I  CAN  AND  CANNOT  BELIEVE     27 

But  if  God  made  man,  then  God  is  responsible  for  all 
man's  acts  and  thoughts,  and  therefore  man  cannot  sin 
against  God. 

And  if  man  could  not  sin  against  God,  but  could  only 
act  as  God  ordained  that  he  should  act,  then  it  is  against 
reason  to  suppose  that  God  could  be  angry  with  man, 
or  could  punish  man,  or  see  any  offense  for  which  to 
pardon  man. 

I  cannot  believe  that  man  has  ever  forsaken  God. 
Because  history  shows  that  man  has  from  the  earliest 
times  been  eagerly  and  pitifully  seeking  God,  and  has 
served  and  praised  and  sacrificed  to  God  with  a  zeal 
akin  to  madness.     But  God  has  made  no  sign. 

I  cannot  believe  that  man  was  at  the  first  created 
"perfect,"  and  that  he  "  fell."  (How  could  the  perfect 
fall?)  I  believe  the  theory  of  evolution,  which  shows 
not  a  fall  but  a  gradual  rise. 

I  cannot  believe  that  God  is  a  loving  "  Heavenly 
Father,"  taking  a  tender  interest  in  mankind.  Because 
He  has  never  interfered  to  prevent  the  horrible  cruelties 
and  injustices  of  man  to  man,  and  because  he  has  per- 
mitted evil  to  rule  the  world.  I  cannot  reconcile  the 
idea  of  a  tender  Heavenly  Father  with  the  known  hor- 
rors of  war,  slavery,  pestilence,  and  insanity.  I  cannot 
discern  the  hand  of  a  loving  Father  in  the  slums,  in  the 
earthquake,  in  the  cyclone.  I  cannot  understand  the  in- 
difference of  a  loving  Father  to  the  law  of  prey,  nor  to 
the  terrors  and  tortures  of  leprosy,  cancer,  cholera,  and 
consumption. 

I  cannot  believe  that  God  is  a  personal  God,  who  inter- 
venes in  human  affairs.  I  cannot  see  in  science,  nor  in 
experience,  nor  in  history  any  signs  of  such  a  God,  nor 
of  such  intervention. 

I  cannot  believe  that  God  hears  and  answers  prayer, 


S28  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

because  the  universe  is  governed  by  laws,  and  there  is 
no  reason  to  suppose  that  those  laws  are  ever  interfered 
with.  Besides,  an  all-wise  God  knows  what  to  do  better 
than  man  can  tell  Him,  and  a  just  God  would  act  justly 
without  requiring  to  be  reminded  of  His  duty  by  one  of 
His  creatures. 

I  cannot  believe  that  miracles  ever  could  or  ever  did 
happen.  Because  the  universe  is  governed  by  laws,  and 
there  is  no  credible  instance  on  record  of  those  laws 
being  suspended. 

I  cannot  believe  that  God  "  created "  man,  as  man 
now  is,  by  word  of  mouth  and  in  a  moment.  I  accept 
the  theory  of  evolution,  which  teaches  that  man  was 
slowly  evolved  by  natural  process  from  lower  forms  of 
life,  and  that  this  evolution  took  millions  of  years. 

I  cannot  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  was  God,  nor  that 
He  was  the  Son  of  God.  There  is  no  solid  evidence 
for  the  miracle  of  the  Incarnation,  and  I  see  no  reason 
for  the  Incarnation. 

I  cannot  believe  that  Christ  died  to  save  man  from 
Hell,  nor  that  He  died  to  save  man  from  sin.  Because 
I  do  not  believe  God  would  condemn  the  human  race 
to  eternal  torment  for  being  no  better  than  He  had  made 
them,  and  because  I  do  not  see  that  the  death  of  Christ 
has  saved  man  from  sin. 

I  cannot  believe  that  God  would  think  it  necessary  to 
come  on  earth  as  a  man,  and  die  on  the  Cross.  Because 
if  that  was  to  atone  for  man's  sin,  it  was  needless,  as 
God  could  have  forgiven  man  without  Himself  suffering. 

I  cannot  believe  that  God  would  send  His  son  to  die 
on  the  Cross.  Because  He  could  have  forgiven  man 
without  subjecting  His  son  to  pain. 

I  cannot  accept  any  doctrine  of  atonement.  Because 
to  forgive  the  guilty  because  the  innocent  had  suffered 


WHAT  I  CAN  AND  CANNOT  BELIEVE     29 

would  be  unjust  and  unreasonable,  and  to  forgive  the 
guilty  because  a  third  person  begged  for  his  pardon 
would  be  unjust. 

I  cannot  believe  that  a  good  God  would  allow  sin  to 
enter  the  world.  Because  He  would  hate  sin  and  would 
have  power  to  destroy  or  to  forbid  it. 

I  cannot  believe  that  a  good  God  would  create  or 
tolerate  a  Devil,  nor  that  he  would  allow  the  Devil  to 
tempt  man. 

I  cannot  believe  the  story  of  the  virgin  birth  of  Christ. 
Because  for  a  man  to  be  born  of  a  virgin  would  be  a 
miracle,  and  I  cannot  believe  in  miracles. 

I  cannot  believe  the  story  of  Christ's  resurrection  from 
the  dead.  Because  that  would  be  a  miracle,  and  because 
there  is  no  solid  evidence  that  it  occurred. 

I  cannot  believe  that  faith  in  the  Godhood  of  Christ  is 
necessary  to  virtue  or  to  happiness.  Because  I  know  that 
some  holding  such  faith  are  neither  happy  nor  virtuous, 
and  that  some  are  happy  and  virtuous  who  do  not  hold 
that  faith. 

The  differences  between  the  religious  and  the  scientific 
theories,  or,  as  I  should  put  it,  between  superstition  and 
rationalism,  are  clearly  marked  and  irreconcilable. 

The  supernaturalist  stands  by  "  creation  " :  the  ration- 
alist stands  by  "  evolution."  It  is  impossible  to  reduce 
these  opposite  ideas  to  a  common  denominator. 

The  creation  theory  alleges  that  the  earth,  and  the  sun, 
and  the  moon,  and  man,  and  the  animals  were  "  created  " 
by  God,  instantaneously,  by  word  of  mouth,  out  of  noth- 
ing. 

The  evolution  theory  alleges  that  they  were  evolved, 
slowly,  by  natural  processes  out  of  previously  existing 
matter. 

The  supernaturalist  alleges  that  religion  was  revealed  to 


30  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

man  by  God,  and  that  the  form  of  this  revelation  is  a  sa- 
cred book. 

The  rationahst  alleges  that  religion  was  evolved  by  slow 
degrees  and  by  human  minds,  and  that  all  existing  forms 
of  religion  and  all  existing  "  sacred  books,"  instead  of 
being  "  revelations,"  are  evolutions  from  religious  ideas 
and  forms  and  legends  of  prehistoric  times.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  reduce  these  opposite  theories  to  a  common  de- 
nominator. 

The  Christians,  the  Hindoos,  the  Parsees,  the  Bud- 
dhists, and  the  Mohammedans  have  each  their  "  Holy 
Bible  "  or  "  sacred  book."  Each  religion  claims  that  its 
own  Bible  is  the  direct  revelation  of  God,  and  is  the  only 
true  Bible  teaching  the  only  true  faith.  Each  religion 
regards  all  the  other  religions  as  spurious. 

The  supernaturalists  believe  in  miracles,  and  each  sect 
claims  that  the  miracles  related  in  its  own  inspired  sacred 
book  prove  the  truth  of  that  book  and  of  the  faith  taught 
therein. 

No  religion  accepts  the  truth  of  any  other  religion's 
miracles.  The  Hindoo,  the  Buddhist,  the  Mohammedan, 
the  Parsee,  the  Christian  each  believes  that  his  miracles 
are  the  only  real  miracles. 

The  Protestant  denies  the  miracles  of  the  Roman 
Catholic. 

The  rationalist  denies  all  miracles  alike.  "  Miracles 
never  happen." 

The  Christian  Bible  is  full  of  miracles.  The  Christian 
Religion  is  founded  on  miracles. 

No  rationalist  believes  in  miracles.  Therefore  no  ra- 
tionalist can  accept  the  Christian  Religion. 

If  you  discard  "  Creation  "  and  accept  evolution ;  if  you 
discard  "  revelation  "  and  accept  evolution ;  if  you  dis- 
card miracles  and  accept  natural  law,  there  is  nothing 


WHAT  I  CAN  AND  CANNOT  BELIEVE     31 

left  of  the  Christian  Religion  but  the  life  and  teachings 
of  Jesus  Christ. 

And  when  one  sees  that  all  religions  and  all  ethics,  even 
the  oldest  known,  have,  like  all  language  and  all  science 
and  all  philosophy  and  all  existing  species  of  animals  and 
plants,  been  slowly  evolved  from  lower  and  ruder  forms ; 
and  when  one  learns  that  there  have  been  many  Christs, 
and  that  the  evidence  of  the  life  of  Jesus  is  very  slight, 
and  that  all  the  acts  and  words  of  Jesus  had  been  antici- 
pated by  other  teachers  long  before  the  Christian  era,  then 
it  is  borne  in  upon  one's  mind  that  the  historic  basis  of 
Christianity  is  very  frail.  And  when  one  realizes  that 
the  Christian  theology,  besides  being  borrowed  from  older 
religions,  is  manifestly  opposed  to  reason  and  to  facts, 
then  one  reaches  a  state  of  mind  which  entitles  the  ortho- 
dox Christian  to  call  one  an  "  Infidel,"  and  to  make  it 
"  unpleasant "  for  one  to  the  glory  of  God. 

That  is  the  position  in  which  I  stand  at  present,  and  it 
is  partly  to  vindicate  that  position,  and  to  protest  against 
those  who  feel  as  I  feel  being  subjected  to  various  kinds 
of  "  unpleasantness,"  that  I  undertake  this  Apology. 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 


*       IS  THE  BIBLE  THE  WORD  OF  GOD? 

The  question  of  the  divine  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures 
is  one  of  great  importance. 

If  the  Bible  is  a  divine  revelation,  if  it  contains  the 
actual  word  of  God,  and  nothing  but  the  word  of  God, 
then  it  is  folly  to  doubt  any  statement  it  contains. 

If  the  Bible  is  merely  the  work  of  men,  if  it  contains 
only  the  words  of  men,  then,  like  all  other  human  work, 
the  Bible  is  fallible,  and  must  submit  to  criticism  and  ex- 
amination, as  all  fallible  human  work  must. 

The  Christian  Religion  stands  or  falls  by  the  truth  of 
the  Bible. 

If  the  Bible  is  the  word  of  God  the  Bible  must  be  true, 
and  the  Christian  Religion  must  be  true. 

But,  as  I  said  before,  the  claim  for  the  divine  origin  of 
the  Bible  has  not  been  made  by  God,  but  by  men. 

We  have  therefore  no  means  of  testing  the  Bible's  title 
to  divine  revelation  other  than  by  criticism  and  examina- 
tion of  the  Bible  itself. 

If  the  Bible  is  the  word  of  God  —  the  all-wise  and  per- 
fect God  —  the  Bible  will  be  perfect.  If  the  Bible  is  not 
perfect  it  cannot  be  the  word  of  a  God  who  is  perfect. 

The  Bible  is  not  perfect.  Historically,  scientifically, 
and  ethically  the  Bible  is  imperfect. 

If  the  Bible  is  the  word  of  God  it  will  present  to  us  the 
perfect  God  as  He  is,  and  every  act  of  His  it  records  will 
be  perfection.  But  the  Bible  does  not  show  us  a  perfect 
God,  but  a  very  imperfect  God,  and  such  of  His  acts  as 
the  Bible  records  are  imperfect. 

I  say,  then,  with  strong  conviction,  that  I  do  not  believe 

35 


36  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

the  Bible  to  be  the  word  of  God ;  that  I  do  not  believe  it 
to  be  inspired  of  God ;  that  I  do  not  believe  it  to  contain 
any  divine  revelation  of  God  to  man.     Why  ? 

Let  us  consider  the  claim  that  the  Bible  is  the  word  of 
God.  Let  us,  first  of  all,  consider  it  from  the  common- 
sense  point  of  view,  as  ordinary  men  of  the  world,  trying 
to  get  at  the  truth  and  the  reason  of  a  thing. 

What  would  one  naturally  expect  in  a  revelation  by  God 
to  man? 

1.  We  should  expect  God  to  reveal  truths  of  which 
mankind  were  ignorant. 

2.  We  should  expect  God  to  make  no  errors  of  fact  in 
His  revelation. 

3.  We  should  expect  God  to  make  His  revelation  so 
clear  and  so  definite  that  it  could  be  neither  misunder- 
stood nor  misrepresented. 

4.  We  should  expect  God  to  insure  that  His  revelation 
should  reach  all  men ;  and  should  reach  all  men  directly 
and  quickly. 

5.  We  should  expect  God^s  revelation  of  the  relations 
existing  between  Himself  and  man  to  be  true. 

6.  We  should  expect  the  ethical  code  in  God's  revela- 
tion to  be  complete,  and  final,  and  perfect.  The  divine 
ethics  should  at  least  be  above  human  criticism  and  be- 
yond human  amendment. 

To  what  extent  does  the  Bible  revelation  fulfill  the 
above  natural  expectations? 

1.  Does  the  Bible  reveal  any  new  moral  truths? 

I  cannot  speak  very  positively,  but  I  think  there  is  very 
little  moral  truth  in  the  Bible  which  has  not  been,  or  will 
not  be,  traced  back  to  more  ancient  times  and  religions. 

2.  Does  the  Bible  revelation  contain  no  errors  of  fact? 
I  claim  that  it  contains  many  errors  of  fact,  and  the 

Higher  Criticism  supports  the  claim ;  as  we  shall  see. 


IS  THE  BIBLE  THE  WORD  OF  GOD?      37 

3.  Is  the  Bible  revelation  so  clear  and  explicit  that  no 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  its  meaning  is  possible? 

No.  It  is  not.  No  one  living  can  claim  anything  of 
the  kind. 

'4.  Has  God's  revelation,  as  given  in  the  Bible,  reached 
all  men? 

No.  After  thousands  of  years  it  is  not  yet  known  to 
one-half  the  human  race. 

5.  Is  God's  revelation  of  the  relations  between  man  and 
God  true? 

I  claim  that  it  is  not  true.  For  the  word  of  God  makes 
it  appear  that  man  was  created  by  God  in  His  own  image, 
and  that  man  sinned  against  God.  Whereas  man,  being 
only  what  God  made  him,  and  having  only  the  powers 
God  gave  him,  could  not  sin  against  God,  any  more  than 
a  steam-engine  can  sin  against  the  engineer  who  designed 
and  built  it. 

6.  Is  the  ethical  code  of  the  Bible  complete,  and  final, 
and  perfect? 

No.  The  ethical  code  of  the  Bible  gradually  develops 
and  improves.  Had  it  been  divine  it  would  have  been 
perfect  from  the  first.  It  is  because  it  is  human  that  it 
develops.  As  the  prophets  and  the  poets  of  the  Jews 
grew  wiser,  and  gentler,  and  more  enlightened,  so  the 
revelation  of  God  grew  wiser  and  gentler  with  them. 
Now,  God  would  know  from  the  beginning;  but  men 
would  have  to  learn.  Therefore  the  Bible  writings  would 
appear  to  be  human,  and  not  divine. 

Let  us  look  over  these  points  again,  and  make  the  mat- 
ter still  clearer  and  more  simple. 

If  the  children  of  an  earthly  father  had  wandered  away 
and  forgotten  him,  and  were,  for  lack  of  guidance,  living 
evil  lives ;  and  if  the  earthly  father  wished  his  children  to 
know  that  they  were  his  children,  wished  them  to  know 


38  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

what  he  had  done  for  them,  what  they  owed  to  him,  what 
penalty  they  might  fear,  or  reward  they  might  ask  from 
him ;  if  he  washed  them  to  Hve  cleanly  and  justly,  and  to 
love  him,  and  at  last  come  home  to  him  —  what  would 
that  earthly  father  do? 

He  would  send  his  message  to  all  his  children,  instead 
of  sending  it  to  one,  and  trusting  him  to  repeat  it  cor- 
rectly to  the  others.  He  would  try  to  so  word  his  mes- 
sage as  that  all  his  children  might  understand  it. 

He  would  send  his  children  the  very  best  rules  of  life 
he  knew.  He  would  take  great  pains  to  avoid  error  in 
matters  of  fact. 

If,  after  the  message  w^as  sent,  his  children  quarreled 
and  fought  about  its  meaning,  their  earthly  father  would 
not  sit  silent  and  allow  them  to  hate  and  slay  each  other, 
because  of  a  misconception ;  but  would  send  at  once,  and 
make  his  meaning  plain  to  all. 

And  if  an  earthly  father  would  act  thus  wisely  and 
thus  kindly,  "  how  much  more  your  Father  which  is  in 
Heaven  "  ? 

But  the  Bible  revelation  was  not  given  to  all  the  people 
of  the  earth.  It  was  given  to  a  handful  of  Jews.  It  was 
not  so  explicit  as  to  make  disagreement  impossible.  It 
is  thousands  of  years  since  the  revelation  of  God  began, 
and  yet  to-day  it  is  not  known  to  hundreds  of  millions 
of  human  beings,  and  amongst  those  whom  it  has  reached 
there  is  endless  bitter  disagreement  as  to  its  meaning. 

Now,  what  is  the  use  of  a  revelation  which  does  not 
reveal  more  than  is  known,  which  does  not  reveal  truth 
only,  which  does  not  reach  half  those  who  need  it,  which 
cannot  be  understood  by  those  it  does  reach? 

But  you  will  regard  me  as  a  prejudiced  witness.  I 
shall  therefore,  in  my  effort  to  prove  the  Bible  fallible, 
quote  almost  wholly  from  Christian  critics. 


IS  THE  BIBLE  THE  WORD  OF  GOD?      39 

And  I  take  the  opportunity  to  here  recommend  very 
strongly  Shall  We  Understand  the  Bible,  by  the  Rev.  T. 
Rhondda  WilHams;  Adam  &  Charles  Black,     is.  net. 

There  are  two  chief  theories  as  to  the  inspiration  of 
the  Bible.  One  is  the  old  theory  that  the  Bible  is  the 
actual  word  of  God,  and  nothing  but  the  word  of  God, 
directly  revealed  by  Gk)d  to  Moses  and  the  prophets. 
The  other  is  the  new  theory :  that  the  Bible  is  the  work  of 
many  men  whom  God  had  inspired  to  speak  or  write  the 
truth. 

The  old  theory  is  well  described  by  Dr.  Washington 
Gladden  in  the  following  passage : 

They  imagine  that  the  Bible  must  have  originated  in  a  manner 
purely  miraculous;  and,  though  they  know  very  little  about  its 
origin,  they  conceive  of  it  as  a  book  that  was  written  in  heaven 
in  the  English  tongue,  divided  there  into  chapters  and  verses, 
with  headlines  and  reference  marks,  printed  in  small  pica,  bound 
in  calf,  and  sent  down  by  angels  in  its  present  form. 

The  newer  idea  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  is  also 
well  expressed  by  Dr.  Gladden ;  thus  : 

Revelation,  we  shall  be  able  to  understand,  is  not  the  dicta- 
tion by  God  of  words  to  men  that  they  may  be  written  down  in 
books :  it  is  rather  the  disclosure  of  the  truth  and  love  of  God 
to  men  in  the  processes  of  history,  in  the  development  of  the 
moral  order  of  the  world.  It  is  the  light  that  lighteth  every 
man,  shining  in  the  paths  that  lead  to  righteousness  and  life. 
There  is  a  moral  leadership  of  God  in  history;  revelation  is  the 
record  of  that  leadership.  It  is  by  no  means  confined  to  words; 
its  most  impressive  disclosures  are  in  the  field  of  action.  "  Thus 
did  the  Lord,"  as  Dr.  Bruce  has  said,  is  a  more  perfect  formula 
of  revelation  than  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord."  It  is  in  that  great 
historical  movement  of  which  the  Bible  is  the  record  that  we 
find  the  revelation  of  God  to  men. 

The  old  theory  of  Bible  inspiration  was,  as  I  have  said, 
the  theory  that  the  Bible  was  the  actual  and  pure  word 
of  God,  and  was  true  in  every  circumstance  and  detail. 

Now,  if  an  almighty  and  all-wise  God  had  spoken  or 
written  every  word  of  the  Bible,  then  that  book  would,  of 


90  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

course,  be  wholly  and  unshakably  true  in  its  every  state- 
ment. 

But  if  the  Bible  was  written  by  men,  some  of  them 
more  or  less  inspired,  then  it  would  not,  in  all  probability, 
be  wholly  perfect. 

The  more  inspiration  its  writers  had  from  God,  the 
more  perfect  it  would  be.  The  less  inspiration  its  writers 
had  from  God,  the  less  perfect  it  would  be. 

Wholly  perfect,  it  might  be  attributed  to  a  perfect 
being.  Partly  perfect,  it  might  be  the  work  of  less  per- 
fect beings.  Less  perfect,  it  would  have  to  be  put  down 
to  less  perfect  beings. 

Containing  any  fault  or  error,  it  could  not  be  the  actual 
word  of  God,  and  the  more  errors  and  faults  it  contained, 
the  less  inspiration  of  God  would  be  granted  to  its  au- 
thors. 

I  will  quote  again  from  Dr.  Gladden: 

What  I  desire  to  show  is,  that  the  work  of  putting  the  Bible 
into  its  present  form  was  not  done  in  heaven,  but  on  earth ;  that 
it  was  not  done  by  angels,  but  by  men;  that  it  was  not  done  all 
at  once,  but  a  little  at  a  time,  the  work  of  preparing  and  per- 
fecting it  extending  over  several  centuries,  and  ernploying  the 
labors  of  many  men  in  different  lands  and  long-divided  genera- 
tions. 

I  now  turn  to  Dr.  Aked.  On  page  25  of  his  book, 
Changing  Creeds,  he  says: 

Ignorance  has  claimed  the  Bible  for  its  own.  Bigotry  has 
made  the  Bible  its  battleground.  Its  phrases  have  become  the 
shibboleth  of  pietistic  sectarians.  Its  authority  has  been  evoked 
in  support  of  the  foulest  crimes  committed  by  the  vilest  men; 
and  its  very  existence  has  been  made  a  pretext  for  theories 
which  shut  out  God  from  His  own  world.  In  our  day  Bible- 
worship  has  become,  with  many  very  good  but  very  unthoughtful 
people,  a  disease. 

So  much  for  the  attitude  of  the  various  schools  of  re- 
ligious thought  towards  the  Bible. 


IS  THE  BIBLE  THE  WORD  OF  GOD?      41 

Now,  in  the  opinion  of  these  Christian  teachers,  is  the 
Bible  perfect  or  imperfect?  Dr.  Aked  gives  his  opinion 
with  characteristic  candor  and  energy : 

Fjor  observe  the  position:  men  are  told  that  the  Bible  is  the 
infallible  revelation  of  God  to  man,  and  that  its  statements  con- 
cerning God  and  man  are  to  be  unhesitatingly  accepted  as  state- 
ments made  upon  the  authority  of  God.  They  turn  to  its  pages, 
and  they  find  historical  errors,  arithmetical  mistakes,  scientific 
blunders  (or,  rather,  blunders  most  unscientific),  inconsistencies, 
and  manifold  contradictions;  and,  what  is  far  worse,  they  find 
that  the  most  horrible  crimes  are  committed  by  men  who  calmly 
plead  in  justification  of  their  terrible  misdeeds  the  imperturbable 
"  God  said."  The  heart  and  conscience  of  man  indignantly  re- 
bel against  the  representations  of  the  Most  High  given  in  some 
parts  of  the  Bible.  What  happens?  Why,  such  men  declare  — 
are  now  declaring,  and  will  in  constantly  increasing  numbers, 
and  with  constantly  increasing  force  and  boldness  declare  — that 
they  can  have  nothing  to  do  with  a  book  whose  errors  a  child 
can  discover,  and  whose  revelation  of  God  partakes  at  times  of 
blasphemy  against  man. 

I  need  hardly  say  that  I  agree  with  every  word  of  the 
above.  If  any  one  asked  me  what  evidence  exists  in  sup- 
port of  the  claims  that  the  Bible  is  the  word  of  Gk)d,  or 
that  it  was  in  any  real  sense  of  the  words  "  divinely  in- 
spired," I  should  answer,  without  the  least  hesitation,  that 
there  does  not  exist  a  scrap  of  evidence  of  any  kind  in 
support  of  such  a  claim. 

Let  us  give  a  little  consideration  to  the  origin  of  the 
Bible.  The  first  five  books  of  the  Bible,  called  the  Penta- 
teuch, were  said  to  be  written  by  Moses.  Moses  was  not, 
and  could  not,  have  been  the  author  of  those  books. 
There  is,  indeed,  no  reliable  evidence  to  prove  that  Moses 
ever  existed.  Whether  he  was  a  fictitious  hero,  or  a  solar 
myth,  or  what  he  was,  no  man  knows. 

Neither  does  there  appear  to  be  any  certainty  that  the 
biblical  books  attributed  to  David,  to  Solomon,  to  Isaiah, 
Jeremiah,  and  the  rest  were  really  written  by  those  kings 
or  prophets,  or  even  in  their  age. 


42  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

And  after  these  books,  or  many  of  them,  had  been  writ- 
ten, they  were  entirely  lost,  and  are  said  to  have  been  re- 
produced by  Ezra. 

Add  to  these  facts  that  the  original  Hebrew  had  no 
vowels,  that  many  of  the  sacred  books  were  written  with- 
out vowels,  and  that  the  vowels  were  added  long  after ; 
and  remember  that,  as  Dr.  Aked  says,  the  oldest  Hebrew 
Bible  in  existence  belongs  to  the  tenth  century  after 
Christ;  and  it  will  begin  to  appear  that  the  claim  for 
biblical  infallibility  is  utterly  absurd. 

But  I  must  not  offer  these  statements  on  my  own  au- 
thority. Let  us  return  to  Dr.  Gladden.  On  page  ii  of 
IVho  Wrote  the  Bible?  I  find  the  following: 

The  first  of  these  holy  books  of  the  Jews  was,  then,  The  Law, 
contained  in  the  first  five  books  of  our  Bible,  known  among  us 
as  the  Pentateuch,  and  called  by  the  Jews  sometimes  simply 
"  The  Law,"  and  sometimes  "  The  Law  of  Moses."  This  was 
supposed  to  be  the  oldest  portion  of  their  Scriptures,  and  was  by 
them  regarded  as  much  more  sacred  and  authoritative  than  any 
other  portion.  To  Moses,  they  said,  God  spake  face  to  face;  to 
the  other  holy  men  much  less  distinctly.  Consequently,  their 
appeal  is  most  often  to  the  law  of  Moses. 

The  sacredness  of  the  five  books  of  "  The  Law,"  then, 
rests  upon  the  belief  that  they  were  written  by  Moses, 
who  had  spoken  face  to  face  with  God. 

So  that  if  Moses  did  not  write  those  books,  their  sa- 
credness is  a  myth.     Now,  on  page  42,  Dr.  Gladden  says : 

1.  The  Pentateuch  could  never  have  been  written  by  any  one 
man,  inspired  or  otherwise. 

2.  It  is  a  composite  work,  in  which  many  hands  have  been 
engaged.     The  production  of  it  extends  over  many  centuries. 

3.  It  contains  writings  which  are  as  old  as  the  time  of  Moses, 
and  some  that  are  much  older.  It  is  impossible  to  tell  how 
much  of  it  came  from  the  hand  of  Moses ;  but  there  are  consid- 
erable portions  of  it  which,  although  they  may  have  been  some- 
what modified  by  later  editors,  are  substantially  as  he  left  them. 

On  page  45  Dr.  Gladden,  again  speaking  of  the  Penta- 
teuch, says: 


IS  THE  BIBLE  THE  WORD  OF  GOD?      43 

But  the  story  of  Genesis  goes  back  to  a  remote  antiquity.  The 
last  event  related  in  that  book  occurred  four  hundred  years  be- 
fore Moses  was  born;  it  was  as  distant  from  him  as  the  dis- 
covery of  America  by  Columbus  is  from  us;  and  other  portions 
of  the  narrative,  such  as  the  stories  of  the  Flood  and  the  Cre- 
ation, stretch  back  into  the  shadows  of  the  age  which  precedes 
history.  Neither  Moses  nor  any  one  living  in  his  day  could 
have  given  us  these  reports  from  his  own  knowledge.  Whoever 
wrote  this  must  have  obtained  his  materials  in  one  of  three  ways : 

1.  They  might  have  been  given  to  him  by  divine  revelation 
from  God. 

2.  He  might  have  gathered  them  up  from  oral  tradition,  from 
stories,  folklore,  transmitted  from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  so  pre- 
served from  generation  to  generation. 

3.  He  might  have  found  them  in  written  documents  existing 
at  the  time  of  his  writing. 

As  many  of  the  laws  and  incidents  in  the  books  of 
Moses  were  known  to  the  Chaldeans,  the  "  direct  revela- 
tion of  God  "  theory  is  not  plausible.  On  this  point  Dr. 
Gladden's  opinion  supports  mine.     He  says,  on  page  61 : 

That  such  is  the  fact  with  respect  to  the  structure  of  these 
ancient  writings  is  now  beyond  question.  And  our  theory  of 
inspiration  must  be  adjusted  to  this  fact.  Evidently  neither  the 
theory  of  verbal  inspiration,  nor  the  theory  of  plenary  inspira- 
tion, can  be  made  to  fit  the  facts  which  a  careful  study  of  the 
writings  themselves  brings  before  us.  These  writings  are  not 
inspired  in  the  sense  which  we  have  commonly  given  that  word. 
The  verbal  theory  of  inspiration  was  only  tenable  while  they 
were  supposed  to  be  the  work  of  a  single  author.  To  such  a 
composite  literature  no  such  theory  will  apply.  "To  make  this 
claim,"  says  Professor  Ladd,  "and  yet  accept  the  best  ascer- 
tained results  of  criticism,  would  compel  us  to  take  such  posi- 
tions as  the  following :  the  original  authors  of  each  one  of  the 
writings  which  enter  into  the  composite  structure  were  infallibly 
inspired;  every  one  who  made  any  changes  in  any  one  of  these 
fundamental  writings  was  infallibly  inspired;  every  compiler 
who  put  together  two  or  more  of  these  writings  was  infallibly 
inspired,  both  as  to  his  selections  and  omissions,  and  as  to  any 
connecting  or  explanatory  words  which  he  might  himself  write; 
every  redactor  was  infallibly  inspired  to  correct  and  supplement, 
and  omit  that  which  was  the  product  of  previous  infallible  in- 
spirations. Or,  perhaps,  it  might  seem  more  convenient  to  at- 
tack the  claim  of  a  plenary  inspiration  to  the  last  redactor  of 
all;  but  then  we  should  probably  have  selected  of  all  others  the 
one  least  able  to  bear  the  weight  of  such  a  claim.  Think  of 
making  the  claim  for  a  plenary  inspiration  of  the  Pentateuch  in 
its  present  form  on  the  ground  of  the  infallibility  of  that  one 


'44  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

of  the  scribes  who  gave  it  its  last  touches  some  time  subsequent 
to  the  death  of  Ezra." 

Remember  that  Dr.  Gladden  declares,  on  page  5,  that 
he  shall  state  no  conclusions  as  to  the  history  of  the 
sacred  writings  which  will  not  be  accepted  by  conserva- 
tive critics. 

On  page  54  Dr.  Gladden  quotes  the  following  from 
Dr.  Perowne : 

The  first  composition  of  the  Pentateuch  as  a  whole  could  not 
have  taken  place  till  after  the  Israelites  entered  Canaan. 

The  whole  work  did  not  finally  assume  its  present  shape  till 
its  revision  was  undertaken  by  Ezra  after  the  return  from  the 
Babylonish  captivity. 

On  page  25  Dr.  Gladden  himself  speaks  as  follows : 

The  common  argument  by  which  Christ  is  made  a  witness  to 
the  authenticity  and  infallible  authority  of  the  Old  Testament 
runs  as  follows : 

Christ  quotes  Moses  as  the  author  of  this  legislation;  there- 
fore Moses  must  have  written  the  whole  Pentateuch.  Moses 
was  an  inspired  prophet;  therefore  all  the  teaching  of  the  Penta- 
teuch must  be  infallible. 

The  facts  are  that  Jesus  nowhere  testifies  that  Moses  wrote 
the  whole  of  the  Pentateuch;  and  that  he  nowhere  guarantees 
the  infallibility  either  of  Moses  or  of  the  book.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  set  aside  as  inadequate  or  morally  defective,  certain 
laws  which  in  this  book  are  ascribed  to  Moses. 

So  much  for  the  authorship  and  the  inspiration  of  the 
first  five  books  of  the  Bible. 

As  to  the  authorship  of  other  books  of  the  Bible,  Dr. 
Gladden  says  of  Judges  and  Samuel,  that  we  do  not  know 
the  authors  nor  the  dates. 

Of  Kings  he  says :  "  The  name  of  the  author  is  con- 
cealed from  us."  The  origin  and  correctness  of  the 
Prophecies  and  Psalms,  he  tells  us,  are  problematical. 

Of  the  Books  of  Esther  and  Daniel,  Dr.  Gladden  says : 
"  That  they  are  founded  on  fact  I  do  not  doubt ;  but  it 
is,  perhaps,  safer  to  regard  them  both  rather  as  historical 
fictions  than  as  veritable  histories." 


IS  THE  BIBEE  THE  WORD  OF  GOD?      45 

Of  Daniel,  Dean  Farrar  wrote : 

The  immense  majority  of  scholars  of  name  and  acknowledged 
competence  in  England  and  Europe  have  now  been  led  to  form 
an  irresistible  conclusion  that  the  jBook  of  Daniel  was  not  writ- 
ten, "and  could  not  have  been  written,  in  its  present  form,  by 
the  prophet  Daniel,  B.  C.  534,  but  that  it  can  only  have  been 
written,  as  we  now  have  it,  in  the  days  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes, 
about  B.  C.  164,  and  that  the  object  of  the  pious  and  patriotic 
author  was  to  inspirit  his  desponding  countrymen  by  splendid 
specimens  of  that  lofty  moral  fiction  which  was  always  common 
amongst  the  Jews  after  the  Exile,  and  was  known  as  "The 
Haggadah."  So  clearly  is  this  proven  to  most  critics,  that  they 
willingly  suffer  the  attempted  refutations  of  their  views  to  sink 
to  the  ground  under  the  weight  of  their  own  inadequacy.^ 

I  return  now  to  Dr.  Aked,  from  whose  book  I  quote 
the  following: 

Dr.  Clifford  has  declared  that  there  is  not  a  man  who  has 
given  a  day's  attention  to  the  question  who  holds  the  complete 
freedom  of  the  Bible  from  inaccuracy.  He  has  added  that  "it 
is  become  more  and  more  impossible  to  affirm  the  inerrancy  of 
the  Bible."  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott  says  that  "an  infallible  book  is 
an  impossible  conception,  and  to-day  no  one  really  believes  that 
our  present  Bible  is  such  a  book." 

Compare  those  opinions  with  the  following  extract  from 
this  first  article  in  The  Bible  and  the  Child: 

The  change  of  view  respecting  the  Bible,  which  has  marked 
the  advancing  knowledge  and  more  earnest  studies  of  this  gen- 
eration, is  only  the  culmination  of  the  discovery  that  there  were 
different  documents  in  the  Book  of  Genesis  —  a  discovery  first 
published  by  the  physician,  Jean  Astruc,  in  1753.  There  are 
three  widely  divergent  ways  of  dealing  with  these  results  of 
profound  study,  each  of  which  is  almost  equally  dangerous  to  the 
faith  of  the  rising  generation. 

I.  Parents  and  teachers  may  go  on  inculcating  dogmas  about 
the  Bible  and  methods  of  dealing  with  it  which  have  long  be- 
come impossible  to  those  who  have  really  tried  to  follow  the 
manifold  discoveries  of  modern  inquiry  with  perfectly  open  and 
unbiased  minds.  There  are  a  certain  number  of  persons  who, 
when  their  minds  have  become  stereotyped  in  foregone  conclu- 
sions, are  simply  incapable  of  grasping  new  truths.  They  be- 
come obstructives,  and  not  infrequently  bigoted  obstructives.  As 
convinced  as  the  Pope  of  their  own  personal  infallibility,  their 

1  The  Bible  and  the  Child. 


'4.6  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

attitude  towards  those  who  see  that  the  old  views  are  no  longer 
tenable  is  an  attitude  of  anger  and  alarm.  This  is  the  usual 
temper  of  the  odium  theologicum.  It  would,  if  it  could,  grasp 
the  thumbscrew  and  the  rack  of  mediaeval  Inquisitors,  and  would, 
in  the  last  resource,  hand  over  all  opponents  to  the  scaffold  or 
the  stake.  Those  whose  intellects  have  thus  been  petrified  by- 
custom  and  advancing  years  are,  of  all  others,  the  most  hope- 
less to  deal  with.  They  have  made  themselves  incapable  of  fair 
and  rational  examination  of  the  truths  which  they  impugn.  They 
think  that  they  can,  by  mere  assertion,  overthrow  results  ar- 
rived at  by  the  lifelong  inquiries  of  the  ablest  students,  while 
they  have  not  given  a  day's  serious  or  impartial  study  to  them. 
They  fancy  that  even  the  ignorant,  if  only  they  be  what  is  called 
"  orthodox,"  are  justified  in  strong  denunciation  of  men  quite 
as  truthful,  and  often  incomparably  more  able  than  themselves. 
Off-hand  dogmatists  of  this  stamp,  who  usually  abound  among 
professional  religionists,  think  that  they  can  refute  any  number 
of  scholars,  however  profound  and  however  pious,  if  only  they 
shout  "  Infidel  "  with  sufficient  loudness. 

Those  are  not  the  words  of  an  "  Infidel."     They  are 
the  words  of  the  late  Dean  Farrar. 
To  quote  again  from  Dr.  Gladden : 

Evidently  neither  the  theory  of  verbal  inspiration,  nor  the 
theory  of  plenary  inspiration,  can  be  made  to  fit  the  facts  which 
a  careful  study  of  the  writings  themselves  brings  before  us. 
These  writings  are  not  inspired  in  the  sense  which  we  have  com- 
monly given  to  that  word.  The  verbal  theory  of  inspiration  was 
only  tenable  while  they  were  supposed  to  be  the  work  of  a  single 
author.     To  such  a  composite  literature  no  such  theory  will  apply. 

The  Bible  is  not  inspired.  The  fact  is,  that  no  "  sa- 
cred "  book  is  inspired.  All  "  sacred  "  books  are  the  work 
of  human  minds.  All  ideas  of  God  are  human  ideas. 
All  religions  are  made  by  man. 

When  the  old-fashioned  Christian  said  the  Bible  was 
an  inspired  book,  he  meant  that  God  put  the  words  and 
the  facts  directly  into  the  mind  of  the  prophet.  That 
meant  that  God  told  Moses  about  the  creation,  Adam 
and  Eve,  Cain  and  Abel,  Noah  and  the  Ark,  and  the  Ten 
Commandments. 

Many  modern  Christians,  amongst  whom  I  place  the 
Rev.  Ambrose  Pope,  of  Bakewell,  believe  that  God  gave 


IS  THE  BIBLE  THE  WORD  OF  GOD?      47 

Moses  (and  all  the  other  prophets)  a  special  genius,  and 
a  special  desire  to  convey  religious  information  to  other 
men. 

And  Mr.  Pope  suggests  that  man  was  so  ignorant,  so 
childlike,  or  so  weak  in  those  days  that  it  was  necessary 
to  disguise  plain  facts  in  misleading  symbols. 

But  the  man,  Moses  or  another,  who  wrote  the  Book 
of  Genesis  was  a  man  of  literary  genius.  He  was  no 
child,  no  weakling.  If  God  had  said  to  him :  "  I  made 
the  world  out  of  the  fiery  nebula,  and  I  made  the  sea  to 
bring  forth  the  staple  of  life,  and  I  caused  all  living  things 
to  develop  from  that  seed  or  staple  of  life,  and  I  drew 
man  out  from  the  brutes ;  and  the  time  was  six  hundred 
millions  of  years."  If  God  had  said  that  to  Moses,  do 
you  think  Moses  would  not  have  understood  ? 

Now,  let  me  show  you  what  the  Christian  asks  us  to 
believe.  He  asks  us  to  believe  that  the  God  who  was  the 
first  cause  of  creation,  and  knew  everything,  inspired 
man,  in  the  childhood  of  the  world,  with  a  fabulous  and 
inaccurate  theory  of  the  origin  of  man  and  the  earth,  and 
that  since  that  day  the  same  God  has  gradually  changed 
or  added  to  the  inspiration,  until  He  inspired  Laplace, 
and  Galileo,  and  Copernicus,  and  Darwin  to  contradict 
the  teachings  of  the  previous  fifty  thousand  years.  He 
asks  us  to  believe  that  God  muddled  men's  minds  with  a 
mysterious  series  of  revelations  cloaked  in  fable  and  alle- 
gory; that  He  allowed  them  to  stumble  and  to  blunder, 
and  to  quarrel  over  these  "  revelations  " ;  that  He  allowed 
them  to  persecute,  and  slay,  and  torture  each  other  on 
account  of  divergent  readings  of  His  "  revelations  "  for 
ages  and  ages ;  and  that  He  is  still  looking  on  while  a 
number  of  bewildered  and  antagonistic  religions  fight 
each  other  to  achieve  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  Is  that 
a  reasonable  theory?    Is  it  the  kind  of  theory  a  reason- 


48  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

able  man  can  accept?  Is  it  consonant  with  common 
sense. 

Contrast  that  with  our  theory.  We  say  that  early  man, 
having  no  knowledge  of  science,  and  more  imagination 
than  reason,  would  be  alarmed  and  puzzled  by  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature.  He  would  be  afraid  of  the  dark,  he 
would  be  afraid  of  the  thunder,  he  would  wonder  at  the 
moon,  at  the  stars,  at  fire,  at  the  ocean.  He  would  fear 
what  he  did  not  understand,  and  he  would  bow  down  and 
pay  homage  to  what  he  feared. 

Then,  by  degrees,  he  would  personify  the  stars,  and  the 
sun,  and  the  thunder,  and  the  fire.  He  would  make  gods 
of  these  things.  He  would  make  gods  of  the  dead.  He 
would  make  gods  of  heroes.  And  he  would  do  what  all 
savage  races  do,  what  all  children  do :  he  would  make 
legends,  or  fables,  or  fairy  tales,  out  of  his  hopes,  his 
fears,  and  his  guesses. 

Does  not  that  sound  reasonable?  Does  not  history 
teach  us  that  it  is  true?  Do  we  not  know  that  religion 
was  so  born  and  nursed  ? 

There  is  no  such  thing  known  to  men  as  an  original 
religion.  All  religions  are  made  up  of  the  fables  and 
the  imaginations  of  tribes  long  since  extinct.  Religion 
is  an  evolution,  not  a  revelation.  It  has  been  invented, 
altered,  and  built  up,  and  pulled  down,  and  reconstructed, 
time  after  time.  It  is  a  conglomeration  and  an  adapta- 
tion, as  language  is.  And  the  Christian  religion  is  no 
more  an  orignal  religion  than  English  is  an  original 
tongue.  We  have  Sanscrit,  Latin,  Greek,  French,  Saxon. 
Norman  words  in  our  language ;  and  we  have  Aryan, 
Semitic,  Egyptian,  Roman,  Greek,  and  all  manner  of 
ancient  foreign  fables,  myths,  and  rites  in  our  Christian 
religion. 

We  say  that  Genesis  was  a  poetic  presentation  of  a 


IS  THE  BIBLE  THE  WORD  OF  GOD?      49 

fabulous  story  pieced  together  from  many  traditions  of 
many  tribes,  and  recording  with  great  Hterary  power  the 
ideas  of  a  people  whose  scientific  knowledge  was  very 
incomplete. 

Now,  I  ask  you  which  of  these  theories  is  the  most 
reasonable;  which  is  the  most  scientific;  which  agrees 
most  closely  with  the  facts  of  philology  and  of  history  of 
which  we  are  in  possession? 

Why  twist  the  self-evident  fact  that  the  Bible  story  of 
creation  was  the  work  of  unscientific  men  of  strong  imag- 
ination, into  a  far-fetched  and  unsatisfactory  puzzle  of 
symbol  and  allegory?  It  would  be  just  as  easy  and  just 
as  reasonable  to  take  the  Morte  d' Arthur  and  try  to  prove 
that  it  contained  a  veiled  revelation  of  God's  relations  to 
man. 

And  let  me  ask  one  or  two  questions  as  to  this  matter 
of  the  revelation  of  the  Holy  Bible.  Is  God  all-power- 
ful, or  is  He  not?  If  He  is  all-powerful,  why  did  He 
make  man  so  imperfect?  Could  He  not  have  created 
him  at  once  a  wise  and  good  creature  ?  Even  when  man 
was  ignorant  and  savage,  could  not  an  all-powerful  God 
have  devised  some  means  of  revealing  Himself  so  as  to  be 
understood?  If  God  really  wished  to  reveal  Himself  to 
man,  why  did  He  reveal  Himself  only  to  one  or  two  ob- 
scure tribes,  and  leave  the  rest  of  mankind  in  darkness? 

Those  poor  savages  were  full  of  credulity,  full  of  ter- 
ror, full  of  wonder,  full  of  the  desire  to  worship.  They 
worshiped  the  sun  and  the  moon;  they  worshiped 
ghosts  and  demons;  they  worshiped  tyrants,  and  pre- 
tenders, and  heroes,  dead  and  alive.  Do  you  believe  that 
if  God  had  come  down  on  earth,  with  a  cohort  of  shining 
angels,  and  had  said,  "  Behold,  I  am  the  only  God,"  these 
savages  would  not  have  left  all  baser  gods,  and  wor- 
shiped Him?    Why,  these  men,  and  all  the  thousands 


50  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

of  generations  of  their  children,  have  been  looking  for 
God  since  first  they  learned  to  look  at  sea  and  sky.  They 
are  looking  for  Him  now.  They  have  fought  countless 
bloody  wars,  and  have  committed  countless  horrible 
atrocities  in  their  zeal  for  Him.  And  you  ask  us  to  be- 
lieve that  His  grand  revelation  of  Himself  is  bound  up 
in  a  volume  of  fables  and  errors  collected  thousands  of 
years  ago  by  superstitious  priests  and  prophets  of  Pales- 
tine, and  Egypt,  and  Assyria. 

We  cannot  believe  such  a  statement.  No  man  can  be- 
lieve it  who  tests  it  by  his  reason  in  the  same  way  in 
which  he  would  test  any  modern  problem.  If  the  leaders 
of  religion  brought  the  same  vigor  and  subtlety  of  mind 
to  bear  upon  religion  which  they  bring  to  bear  upon  any 
criticism  of  religion,  if  they  weighed  the  Bible  as  they 
have  weighed  astronomy  and  evolution,  the  Christian  re- 
ligion would  not  last  a  year. 

If  my  reader  has  not  studied  this  matter,  let  him  read 
the  books  I  have  recommended,  and  then  sit  down  and 
consider  the  Bible  revelation  and  story  with  the  same 
fearless  honesty  and  clear  common  sense  with  which  he 
would  consider  the  Bibles  of  the  Mohammedan,  or  Bud- 
dhist, or  Hindoo,  and  then  ask  himself  the  question :  "  Is 
the  Bible  a  holy  and  inspired  book,  and  the  word  of  God 
to  man,  or  is  it  an  incongruous  and  contradictory  collec- 
tion of  tribal  traditions  and  ancient  fables,  written  by 
men  of  genius  and  imagination?'* 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE 

We  now  reach  the  second  stage  in  our  examination, 
which  is  the  claim  that  no  rehgion  known  to  man  can  be 
truly  said  to  be  original.  All  religions,  the  Christian  re- 
ligion included,  are  adaptations  or  variants  of  older  re- 
ligions.    Religions  are  not  revealed:  they  are  evolved. 

If  a  religion  were  revealed  by  God,  that  religion  would 
be  perfect  in  whole  and  in  part,  and  would  be  as  perfect 
at  the  first  moment  of  its  revelation  as  after  ten  thou- 
sand years  of  practice.  There  has  never  been  a  religion 
which  fulfills  those  conditions. 

According  to  Bible  chronology,  Adam  was  created  some 
six  thousand  years  ago.  Science  teaches  that  man  existed 
during  the  glacial  epoch,  which  was  at  least  fifty  thou- 
sand years  before  the  Christian  era. 

Here  I  recommend  the  study  of  Laing's  Human 
Origins,  Parsons'  Our  Sun  God,  Sayce's  Ancient  Empires 
of  the  East,  and  Frazer's  Golden  Bough. 

In  his  visitation  charge  at  Blackburn,  in  July,  1889,  the 
Bishop  of  Manchester  spoke  as  follows : 

Now,  if  these  dates  are  accepted,  to  what  age  of  the  world 
shall  we  assign  that  Accadian  civilization  and  literature  which  so 
long  preceded  Sargo  I  and  the  statutes  of  Sirgullah?  I  can 
best  answer  you  in  the  words  of  the  great  Assyriologist,  F. 
Hommel :  "If,"  he  says,  "the  Semites  were  already  settled  in 
Northern  Babylonia  (Accad)  in  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 
thousand  B.  C,  in  possession  of  the  fully  developed  Shumiro- 
Accadian  culture  adopted  by  them  —  a  culture,  moreover,  which 
appears  to  have  sprouted  like  a  cutting  from  Shumir,  then  the 
latter  must  be  far,  far  older  still,  and  have  existed  in  its  com- 
pleted form  in  the  fifth  thousand  B.  C,  an  age  to  which  I  un- 
hesitatingly ascribe  the  South  Babylonian  incantations."  .  .  . 
Who  does  not  see  that  such  facts  as  these  compel  us  to  remodel 
our  whole  idea  of  the  past? 

5.1 


52  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

A  culture  which  was  complete  one  thousand  years  be- 
fore Adam  must  have  needed  many  thousands  of  years 
to  develop.  It  would  be  a  modest  guess  that  Accadian 
culture  implied  a  growth  of  at  least  ten  thousand  years. 

Of  course,  it  may  be  said  that  the  above  biblical  error 
is  only  an  error  of  time,  and  has  no  bearing  on  the  al- 
leged evolution  of  the  Bible.  Well,  an  error  of  a  million, 
or  of  ten  thousand,  years  is  a  serious  thing  in  a  divine 
revelation;  but,  as  we  shall  see,  it  has  a  bearing  on  evo- 
lution. Because  it  appears  that  in  that  ancient  Accadian 
civilization  lie  the  seeds  of  many  Bible  laws  and  legends. 

Here  I  quote  from  Our  Sun  God,  by  Mr.  J.  D.  Par- 
sons: 


To  commence  with,  it  is  well  known  to  those  acquainted  with 
the  remains  of  the  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  civilizations,  that 
the  stories  of  the  creation,  the  temptation,  the  fall,  the  deluge, 
and  the  confusion  of  tongues,  were  the  common  property  of  the 
Babylonians  centuries  before  the  date  of  the  alleged  Exodus 
under  Moses.  .  .  .  Even  the  word  Sabbath  is  Babylonian. 
And  the  observance  of  the  seventh  day  as  a  Sabbath,  or  day  of 
rest,  by  the  Accadians  thousands  of  years  before  Moses,  or 
Israel,  or  even  Abraham,  or  Adam  himself  could  have  been  born 
or  created,  is  admitted  by,  among  others,  the  Bishop  of  Man- 
chester. For  in  an  address  to  his  clergy,  already  mentioned,  he 
let  fall  these  pregnant  words : 

"Who  does  not  see  that  such  facts  as  these  compel  us  to 
remodel  our  whole  idea  of  the  past,  and  that  in  particular  to 
affirm  that  the  Sabbatical  institution  originated  in  the  time  of 
Moses,  three  thousand  five  hundred  years  after  it  is  probable 
that  it  existed  in  Chaldaea,  is  an  impossibility,  no  matter  how 
many  Fathers  of  the  Church  have  asserted  it.  Facts  cannot  be 
dismissed  like  theories." 

The  Sabbath,  then,  is  one  link  in  the  evolution  of  the 
Bible.  Like  the  legends  of  the  Creation,  the  Fall,  and  the 
Flood,  it  was  adopted  by  the  Jews  from  the  Babylonians 
during  or  after  the  Captivity. 

Of  the  Flood,  Professor  Sayce,  in  his  Ancient  Empires 
of  the  East,  speaks  as  follows : 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE  53 

With  the  Deluge  the  mythical  history  of  Babylonia  takes  a 
new  departure.  From  this  event  to  the  Persian  conquest  was  a 
period  of  36,000  years,  or  an  astronomical  cycle  called  saros. 
Xisuthros,  with  his  family  and  friends,  alone  survived  the  waters 
which  drowned  the  rest  of  mankind  on  account  of  their  sins. 
He  had  been  ordered  by  the  gods  to  build  a  ship,  to  pitch  it 
within  and  without,  and  to  stock  it  with  animals  of  every  species. 
Xisuthros  sent  out  first  a  dove,  then  a  swallow,  and  lastly  a 
raven,  to  discover  whether  the  earth  was  dry;  the  dove  and 
the  swallow  returned  to  the  ship,  and  it  was  only  when  the 
raven  flew  away  that  the  rescued  hero  ventured  to  leave  his 
ark.  He  found  that  he  had  been  stranded  on  the  peak  of  the 
mountain  of  Nizir,  "the  mountain  of  the  world,"  whereon  the 
Accadians  believed  the  heavens  to  rest  —  where,  too,  they  placed 
the  habitations  of  their  gods,  and  the  cradle  of  their  own  race. 
Since  Nizir  lay  amongst  the  mountains  of  Pir  Mam,  a  little 
south  of  Rowandiz,  its  mountain  must  be  identified  with  Row- 
andiz  itself.  On  its  peak  Xisuthros  offered  sacrifices,  piling 
up  cups  of  wine  by  sevens;  and  the  rainbow,  "the  glory  of  Anu," 
appeared  in  the  heaven,  in  covenant  that  the  world  should  never 
again  be  destroyed  by  flood.  Immediately  afterwards  Xisuthros 
and  his  wife,  like  the  biblical  Enoch,  were  translated  to  the 
regions  of  the  blest  beyond  Datilla,  the  river  of  Death,  and  his 
people  made  their  way  westward  to  Sippara.  Here  they  disin- 
terred the  books  buried  by  their  late  ruler  before  the  Deluge 
took  place,  and  re-established  themselves  in  their  old  country 
under  the  government  first  of  Erekhoos,  and  then  of  his  son 
Khoniasbolos.  Meanwhile,  other  colonists  had  arrived  in  the 
plain  of  Sumer,  and  here,  under  the  leadership  of  the  giant 
Etana,  called  Titan  by  the  Greek  writers,  they  built  a  city  of 
brick,  and  essayed  to  erect  a  tower  by  means  of  which  they 
might  scale  the  sky,  and  so  win  for  themselves  the  immortality 
granted  to  Xisuthros.  .  .  .  But  the  tower  was  overthrown  in 
the  night  by  the  winds,  and  Bel  frustrated  their  purpose  by  con- 
founding their  language,  and  scattering  them  on  the  mound. 

These  legends  of  the  Flood  and  the  Tower  of  Babel 
were  obviously  borrowed  by  the  Jews  during  their  Baby- 
lonian captivity. 

Professor  Sayce,  in  his  Ancient  Empires  of  the  East, 
speaking  of  the  Accadian  king,  Sargon  L,  says : 

Legends  naturally  gathered  round  the  name  of  this  Baby- 
lonian Solomon.  Not  only  was  he  entitled  "the  deviser  of  law, 
the  deviser  of  prosperity,"  but  it  was  told  of  him  how  his  father 
had  died  while  he  was  still  unborn,  how  his  mother  had  fled 
to  the  mountains,  and  there  left  him,  like  a  second  Moses,  to 
the  care  of  the  river  in  an  ark  of  reeds  and  bitumen;  and  how 
he  was  saved  by  Accir,  "the  water-drawer,"  who  brought  him 


54  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

up  as  his  own  son,  until  the  time  came  when,  under  the  pro- 
tection of  Istar,  his  rank  was  discovered,  and  he  took  his  seat 
on  the  throne  of  his  forefathers. 

From  Babylon  the  Jews  borrowed  the  legends  of  Eden, 
of  the  Fall,  the  Flood,  the  Tower  of  Babel ;  from  Babylon 
they  borrowed  the  Sabbath,  and  very  likely  the  Com- 
mandments; and  is  it  not  possible  that  the  legendary 
Moses  and  the  legendary  Sargon  may  be  variants  of  a 
still  more  ancient  mythical  figure? 

Compare  Sayce  with  the  following  "  Notes  on  the 
Moses  Myth,"  from  Christianity  and  Mythology,  by  J.  M. 
Robertson : 

Notes  on  the  Moses  Myth 

I  have  been  challenged  for  saying  that  the  story  of  Moses  and 
the  floating  basket  is  a  variant  of  the  myth  of  Horos  and  the 
floating  island  (Herod,  ii.  156).  But  this  seems  sufficiently 
proved  by  the  fact  that  in  the  reign  of  Rameses  II,  according 
to  the  monuments,  there  was  a  place  in  Middle  Egypt  which 
bore  the  name  I-en-Moshe,  ""  the  island  of^  Moses."  That  is  the 
primary  meaning.  Brugsch,  who  proclaims  the  fact  {Egypt 
under  the  Pharaohs,  ii,  117),  suggests  that  it  can  also  mean 
"the  river  bank  of  Moses."  It  is  very  obvious,  however,  that 
the  Egyptians  would  not  have  named  a  place  by  a  real  incident 
in  the  life  of  a  successful  enemy,  as  Moses  is  represented  in 
Exodus.  Name  and  story  are  alike  mythological  and  pre-He- 
braic,  though  possibly  Semitic.  The  Assyrian  myth  of  Sar- 
gon, which  is,  indeed,  very  close  to  the  Hebrew,  may  be  the 
oldest  form  of  all;  but  the  very  fact  that  the  Hebrews  located 
their  story  in  Egypt  shows  that  they  knew  it  to  have  a  home 
there  in  some  fashion.  The  name  Moses,  whether  it  mean  "  the 
water-child"  (so  Deutsch)  or  "the  hero"  (Sayce,  Hib.  Led.  p. 
46),  was  in  all  likelihood  an  epithet  of  Horos.  The  basket,  in 
the  latter  form,  was  doubtless  an  adaptation  from  the  ritual 
of  the  basket-born  God-Child,  as  was  the  birth  story  of  Jesus. 
In  Diodorus  Siculus  (i.  25)  the  myth  runs  that  Isis  found  Horos 
dead  "on  the  water,"  and  brought  him  to  life  again;  but  even 
in  that  form  the  clue  to  the  Moses  birth-myth  is  obvious.  And 
there  are  yet  other  Egyptian  connections  for  the  Moses  saga, 
since  the  Egyptians  had  a  myth  of  Thoth  (their  Logos)  having 
slain  Argus  (as  did  Hermes),  and  having  had  to  fly  for  it  to 
Egypt,  w^here  he  gave  laws  and  learning  to  the  Egyptians.  Yet, 
curiously  enough,  this  myth  probably  means  that  the  Sun-God, 
who  has  in  the  other  story  escaped  the  "massacre  of  the  inno- 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE  55 

cents"  (the  morning  stars),  now  plays  the  slayer  on  his  own 
account,  since  the  slaying  of  many-eyed  Argus  probably  means 
the  extinction  of  the  stars  by  the  morning  sun  (cp.  iimeric-David, 
Introduction,  end).  Another  "Hermes"  was  son  of  Nilus,  and 
his  name  was  sacred  (Cicero,  De  Nat.  Deor.  Hi,  22,  cp.  16). 
The  story  of  the  floating  child,  finally,  becomes  part  of  the  lore 
of  Greece.  In  the  myth  of  Apollo,  the  Babe-God  and  his  sister 
Artemis  are  secured  in  float-islands. 

It  is  impossible  to  form  a  just  estimate  of  the  Bible 
without  some  knowledge  of  ancient  history  and  compara- 
tive mythology.  It  would  be  impossible  for  me  to  go 
deeply  into  these  matters  in  this  small  book,  but  I  will 
quote  a  few  significant  passages,  just  to  show  the  value 
of  such  historical  evidence.  Here,  to  begin  with,  are 
some  passages  from  Mr.  Grant  Allen's  Evolution  of  the 
Idea  of  God: 

The  Origin  of  Gods 

Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  has  traced  so  admirably,  in  his  Principles 
of  Sociology,  the  progress  of  development  from  the  Ghost  to  the 
God  that  I  do  not  propose  in  this  chapter  to  attempt  much  more 
than  a  brief  recapitulation  of  his  main  propositions,  which,  how- 
ever, I  shall  supplement  with  fresh  examples,  and  adapt  at  the 
same  time  to  the  conception  of  three  successive  stages  in  human 
ideas  about  the  Life  of  the  Dead,  as  set  forth  in  the  preceding 
argument. 

In  the  earliest  stage  of  all  —  the  stage  where  the  actual 
bodies  of  the  dead  are  preserved  —  Gods  as  such  are  for  the 
most  part  unknown :  it  is  the  corpses  of  friends  and  ancestors 
that  are  worshiped  and  reverenced.  For  example,  Ellis  says  of 
the  corpse  of  a  Tahitian  chief,  that  it  was  placed  in  a  sitting 
posture  under  a  protecting  shed ;  "  a  small  altar  was  erected  be- 
fore it,  and  offerings  of  fruit,  food,  and  flowers  were  daily  pre- 
sented by  the  relatives,  or  the  priest  appointed  to  attend  the 
body."  (This  point  about  the  priest  is  of  essential  importance.) 
The  Central  Americans,  again,  as  Mr.  Spencer  notes,  performed 
similar  rites  before  bodies  dried  by  artificial  heat.  The  New 
Guinea  people,  as  D'Albertis  found,  worship  the  dried  mum- 
mies of  their  fathers  and  husbands.  A  little  higher  in  the 
scale,  we  get  the  developed  mummy-worship  of  Egypt  and  Peru, 
which  survives  even  after  the  evolution  of  greater  gods,  from 
powerful  kings  or  chieftains.  Wherever  the  actual  bodies  of 
the  dead  are  preserved,  there  also  worship  and  offerings  are 
paid  to  them. 

Often,  however,  as  already  noted,  it  is  not  the  whole  body, 


56  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

but  the  head  alone,  that  is  specially  kept  and  worshiped.  Thus 
Mr.  H.  O.  Forbes  says  of  the  people  of  Buru :  "The  dead  are 
buried  in  the  forest  in  some  secluded  spot,  marked  by  a  merang, 
or  grave-pole,  over  which  at  certain  intervals  the  relatives  place 
tobacco,  cigarettes,  and  various  offerings.  When  the  body  is  de- 
composed, the  son  or  nearest  relative  disinters  the  head,  wraps 
a  new  cloth  about  it,  and  places  it  in  the  Matakau  at  the  back 
of  his  house,  or  in  a  little  hut  erected  for  it  near  the  grave. 
It  is  the  representative  of  his  forefathers,  whose  behests  he 
holds  in  the  greatest  respect." 

Two  points  are  worthy  of  notice  in  this  interesting  account, 
as  giving  us  an  anticipatory  hint  of  two  further  accessories 
whose  evolution  we  must  trace  hereafter:  first,  the  grave-stake, 
which  is  probably  the  origin  of  the  wooden  idol;  the  second, 
the  little  hut  erected  over  the  head  by  the  side  of  the  grave, 
which  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  origins  of  the  temple,  or  pray- 
ing-house. Observe,  also,  the  ceremonial  wrapping  of  the  skull 
in  cloth  and  its  oracular  functions. 

Throughout  the  earlier  and  ruder  phases  of  human  evolution 
this  primitive  conception  of  ancestors  or  dead  relatives  as  the 
chief  known  objects  of  worship  survives  undiluted:  and  ancestor- 
worship  remains  to  this  day  the  principal  religion  of  the  Chinese 
and  of  several  other  peoples.  Gods,  as  such,  are  practically 
unknown  in  China.  Ancestor-worship,  also,  survives  in  many 
other  races  as  one  of  the  main  cults,  even  after  other  elements 
of  later  religion  have  been  superimposed  upon  it.  In  Greece  and 
Rome  it  remained  to  the  last  an  important  part  of  domestic 
ritual.  But  in  most  cases  a  gradual  differentiation  is  set  up  in 
time  between  various  classes  of  ghosts  or  dead  persons,  some 
ghosts  being  considered  of  more  importance  and  power  than 
others;  and  out  of  these  last  it  is  that  gods  as  a  rule  are  finally 
developed.  A  god,  in  fact,  is  in  the  beginning,  at  least,  an  ex- 
ceptionally powerful  and  friendly  ghost  —  a  ghost  able  to  help, 
and  from  whose  help  great  things  may  reasonably  be  expected. 

Again,  the  rise  of  chieftainship  and  kingship  has  much  to  do 
with  the  growth  of  a  higher  conception  of  godhead;  a  dead 
king  of  any  great  power  or  authority  is  sure  to  be  thought  of 
in  time  as  a  god  of  considerable  importance.  We  shall  trace 
out  this  idea  more  fully  hereafter  in  the  religion  of  Egypt;  for 
the  present  it  must  suffice  to  say  that  the  supposed  power  of  the 
gods  in  each  pantheon  has  regularly  increased  in  proportion 
to  the  increased  power  of  kings  or  emperors. 

When  we  pass  from  the  first  plane  of  corpse  preservation  and 
mummification  to  the  second  plane,  where  burial  is  habitual, 
it  might  seem,  at  a  hasty  glance,  as  though  continued  worship 
of  the  dead,  and  their  elevation  into  gods,  would  no  longer  be 
possible.  For  we  saw  that  burial  is  prompted  by  a  deadly  fear 
lest  the  corpse  or  ghost  should  return  to  plague  the  hving. 
Nevertheless,  natural  affection  for  parents  or  friends,  and  the 
desire  to  insure  their  goodwill  and  aid,  make  these  seemingly 
contrary  ideas  reconcilable.    As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  find  that 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  THE  BIBLE  57^ 

even  when  men  bury  or  burn  their  dead,  they  continue  to  wor- 
ship them;  while,  as  we  shall  show  in  the  sequel,  even  the  great 
stones  which  they  roll  on  top  of  the  grave  to  prevent  the  dead 
from  rising  again  become,  in  time,  altars  on  which  sacrifices  are 
offered  to  the  spirit. 

Much  of  the  Bible  is  evidently  legendary.  Here  we 
have  a  jumble  of  ancient  myths,  allegories,  and  mysteries 
drawn  from  many  sources  and  remote  ages,  and  adapted, 
altered,  and  edited  so  many  times  that  in  many  instances 
their  original  or  inner  meaning  has  become  obscure.  And 
it  is  folly  to  accept  the  tangled  legends  and  blurred  or 
distorted  symbols  as  the  literal  history  of  a  literal  tribe, 
and  the  literal  account  of  the  origin  of  man,  and  the 
genesis  of  religion. 

The  real  roots  of  religion  lie  far  deeper:  deeper,  per- 
haps, than  sun-worship,  ghost-worship,  and  fear  of 
demons.  In  The  Real  Origin  of  Religion  occurs  the  fol- 
lowing : 

Quite  recently  theories  have  been  advocated  attempting  to 
prove  that  the  minds  of  early  men  were  chiefly  concerned  with 
the  increase  of  vegetation,  and  that  their  fancy  played  so  much 
round  the  mysteries  of  plant  growth  that  they  made  them  their 
holiest  arcana.  Hence  it  appears  that  the  savages  were  far 
more  modest  and  refined  than  our  civilized  contemporaries, 
for  almost  all  our  works  of  imagination,  both  in  literature  and 
art,  make  human  love  their  theme  in  all  its  aspects,  whether 
healthy  or  pathological;  whereas  the  savage,  it  seems,  thought 
only  of  his  crops.  Nothing  can  be  more  astonishing  than  this 
discovery,  if  it  be  true,  but  there  are  many  facts  which  might 
lead  us  to  believe  that  the  romance  of  love  inspired  early  art 
and  religion  as  well  as  modern  thought. 

And  again: 

Religion  is  a  gorgeous  efflorescence  of  human  love.  The 
tender  passion  has  left  its  footsteps  on  the  sands  of  time  in 
magnificent  monuments  and  libraries  of  theology. 

This  may  seem  startling  to  many  orthodox  readers,  but 
it  is  no  new  theory,  and  is  doubtless  quite  true,  for  all 
gods  have  been  made  by  man,  and  all  theologies  have 


58  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

been  evolved  by  man,  and  the  odor  and  the  color  of  his 
human  passions  cling  to  them  always,  even  after  they  are 
discarded.  Under  all  man's  dreams  of  eternal  gods  and 
eternal  heavens  lies  man's  passion  for  the  eternal  femi- 
nine. But  on  these  subjects  "  Moses  "  spoke  in  parables, 
and  I  shall  not  speak  at  all. 

Mr.  Robertson,  in  Christianity  and  Mythology,  says  of 
the  Bible : 

It  is  a  medley  of  early  metaphysics  and  early  fable  —  early, 
that  is,  relatively  to  known  Hebrew  history.  It  ties  together 
two  creation  stories  and  two  flood  stories;  it  duplicates  several 
sets  of  mythic  personages  —  as  Cain  and  Abel,  Tubal-Cain  and 
Jabal;  it  grafts  the  curse  of  Cham  on  the  curse  of  Cain,  making 
that  finally  the  curse  of  Canaan ;  it  tells  the  same  offensive  story 
twice  of  one  patriarch,  and  again  of  another;  it  gives  an  early 
"metaphysical"  theory  of  the  origin  of  death,  life,  and  evil;  it 
adapts  the  Egyptian  story  of  the  "  Two  Brothers,"  or  the  myth 
of  Adonis,  as  the  history  of  Joseph;  it  makes  use  of  various 
God-names,  pretending  that  they  always  stood  for  the  same  deity ; 
it  repeats  traditions  concerning  mythic  founders  of  races  —  if  all 
this  be  not  "a  medley  of  early  fable,"  what  is  it? 

I  quote  next  from  The  Bible  and  the  Child,  in  which 
Dean  Farrar  says : 

Some  of  the  books  of  Scripture  are  separated  from  others  by 
the  interspace  of  a  thousand  years.  They  represent  the  frag- 
mentary survival  of  Hebrew  literature.  They  stand  on  very  dif- 
ferent levels  of  value,  and  even  of  morality.  Read  for  centuries 
in  an  otiose,  perfunctory,  slavish,  and  superstitious  manner,  they 
have  often  been  so  egregiously  misunderstood  that  many  entire 
systems  of  interpretation  —  which  were  believed  in  for  genera- 
tions, and  which  fill  many  folios,  now  consigned  to  a  happy 
oblivion  —  are  clearly  proved  to  have  been  utterly  baseless.  Co- 
lossal usurpations  of  deadly  import  to  the  human  race  have  been 
built,  like  inverted  pyramids,  on  the  narrow  apex  of  a  single  mis- 
interpreted text. 

Compare  those  utterances  of  the  freethinker  and  the 
divine,  and  then  read  the  following  words  of  Dean  Far- 
rar: 

The  manner  in  which  the  Higher  Criticism  has  slowly  and 
surely  made  its  victorious  progress,  in  spite  of  the  most  de- 
termined and  exacerbated  opposition,  is  a  strong  argument  in  its 


THE  EVOLUTION  OE  THE  BIBLE  59 

favor.  It  is  exactly  analogous  to  the  way  in  which  the  truths 
of  astronomy  and  of  geology  have  triumphed  over  universal  op- 
position. They  were  once  anathematized  as  "  infidel " ;  they  are 
now  accepted  as  axiom.atic.  I  cannot  name  a  single  student  or 
professor  of  any  eminence  in  Great  Britain  who  does  not  ac- 
cept, with  more  or  less  modification,  the  main  conclusions  of  the 
German  school  of  critics. 

This  being  the  case,  I  ask,  as  a  mere  layman,  what  right 
has  the  Bible  to  usurp  the  title  of  "  the  word  of  God  "  ? 
What  evidence  can  be  sharked  up  to  show  that  it  is  any 
more  a  holy  or  an  inspired  book  than  any  book  of  Thomas 
Carlyle's,  or  John  Ruskin's,  or  William  Morris'?  What 
evidence  is  forthcoming  that  the  Bible  is  true? 


THE  UNIVERSE  ACCORDING  TO  ANCIENT  RE- 
LIGION AND  MODERN  SCIENCE 

The  theory  of  the  early  Christian  Church  was  that  the 
Earth  was  flat,  Hke  a  plate,  and  the  sky  was  a  solid  dome 
above  it,  like  an  inverted  blue  basin. 

The  Sun  revolved  round  the  Earth  to  give  light  by  day, 
the  Moon  revolved  round  the  Earth  to  give  light  by  night. 
The  stars  were  auxiliary  lights,  and  had  all  been  specially, 
and  at  the  same  time,  created  for  the  good  of  man. 

God  created  the  Sun,  Moon,  Stars,  and  Earth  in  six 
days.  He  created  them  by  word,  and  He  created  them 
out  of  nothing. 

The  center  of  the  Universe  was  the  Earth.  The  Sun 
was  made  to  give  light  to  the  Earth  by  day,  and  the  Moon 
to  give  light  to  Earth  by  night. 

Any  man  who  denied  that  theory  in  those  days  was  in 
danger  of  being  murdered  as  an  Infidel. 

To-day  our  ideas  are  very  different.  Hardly  any  edu- 
cated man  or  woman  in  the  world  believes  that  the  world 
is  flat,  or  that  the  Sun  revolves  round  the  Earth,  or  that 
what  we  call  the  sky  is  a  solid  substance,  like  a  domed 
ceiling. 

Advanced  thinkers,  even  amongst  the  Christians,  be- 
lieve that  the  world  is  round,  that  it  is  one  of  a  series  of 
planets  revolving  round  the  Sun,  that  the  Sun  is  only 
one  of  many  millions  of  other  suns,  that  these  suns  were 
not  created  simultaneously,  but  at  different  periods,  prob- 
ably separated  by  millions  or  billions  of  years. 

60 


ANCIENT  RELIGION  6l< 

We  have  all,  Christians  and  Infidels  alike,  been  obliged 
to  acknowledge  that  the  Earth  is  not  the  center  of  the 
whole  Universe,  but  only  a  minor  planet  revolving  around 
and  dependent  upon,  one  of  myriads  of  suns. 

God,  called  by  Christians  "  Our  Heavenly  Father,"  cre- 
ated all  things.  He  created  not  only  the  world,  but  the 
whole  universe.  He  is  all-wise,  He  is  all-powerful.  He 
is  all-loving,  and  He  is  revealed  to  us  in  the  Scriptures. 

Let  us  see.  Let  us  try  to  imagine  what  kind  of  a  God 
the  creator  of  this  Universe  would  be,  and  let  us  com- 
pare him  with  the  God,  or  Gods,  revealed  to  us  in  the 
Bible,  and  in  the  teachings  of  the  Church. 

We  have  seen  the  account  of  the  Universe  and  its  crea- 
tion, as  given  in  the  revealed  Scriptures.  Let  us  now 
take  a  hasty  view  of  the  Universe  and  its  creation  as  re- 
vealed to  us  by  science. 

What  is  the  Universe  like,  as  far  as  our  limited  knowl- 
edge goes? 

Our  Sun  is  only  one  sun  amongst  many  millions.  Our 
planet  is  only  one  of  eight  which  revolve  around  him. 

Our  Sun,  with  his  planets  and  comets,  comprises  what 
is  known  as  the  solar  system. 

There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  this  is  the  only  Solar 
System:  there  may  be  many  millions  of  solar  systems. 
For  aught  we  know,  there  may  be  millions  of  systems, 
each  containing  millions  of  solar  systems. 

Let  us  deal  first  with  the  solar  system  of  which  we  are 
a  part. 

The  Sun  is  a  globe  of  866,200  miles  diameter.  His 
diameter  is  more  than  108  times  that  of  the  Earth.  His 
volume  is  1,305,000  times  the  volume  of  the  Earth.  All 
the  eight  planets  added  together  only  make  one-seven- 
hundredth  part  of  his  weight.  His  circumference  is  more 
than  two  and  a  half  millions  of  miles.     He  revolves  upon 


62  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

his  axis  in  25^  days,  or  at  a  speed  of  nearly  4000  miles 
an  hour. 

This  immense  and  magnificent  globe  diffuses  heat  and 
light  to  all  the  other  planets. 

Without  the  light  and  heat  of  the  Sun  no  life  would 
now  be,  or  in  the  past  have  been,  possible  on  this  Earth, 
or  any  other  planet  of  the  solar  system. 

The  eight  planets  of  the  solar  system  are  divided  into 
four  inferior  and  four  superior. 

The  inferior  planets  are  Mercury,  Venus,  the  Earth,  and 
Mars.  The  superior  are  Jupiter,  Saturn,  Uranus,  and 
Neptune. 

The  diameters  of  the  smaller  planets  are  as  follow: 
Mercury,  3008  miles;  Mars,  5000  miles;  Venus,  7480 
miles ;  the  Earth,  7926  miles. 

The  diameters  of  the  large  planets  are :  Jupiter,  88,439 
miles;  Saturn,  75,036  miles;  Neptune,  37,205  miles; 
Uranus,  30,875  miles. 

The  volume  of  Jupiter  is  1389  times,  of  Saturn  848 
times,  of  Neptune  103  times,  and  of  Uranus  59  times  the 
volume  of  the  Earth. 

The  mean  distances  from  the  Sun  are:  Mercury,  36 
million  miles;  Venus,  67  million  miles;  the  Earth,  93 
million  miles ;  Mars,  141  million  miles ;  Jupiter,  483  mil- 
lion miles ;  Saturn,  886  million  miles ;  Uranus,  1782  mil- 
lion miles ;  Neptune,  2792  million  miles. 

To  give  an  idea  of  the  meaning  of  these  distances,  I 
may  say  that  a  train  traveling  night  and  day  at  60  miles 
an  hour  would  take  quite  176  years  to  come  from  the  Sun 
to  the  Earth. 

The  same  train,  at  the  same  speed,  would  be  5280  years 
in  traveling  from  the  Sun  to  Neptune. 

Reckoning  that  Neptune  is  the  outermost  planet  of  the 


ANCIENT  RELIGION  63 

solar  system,  that  system  would  have  a  diameter  of  5584 
millions  of  miles. 

If  we  made  a  chart  of  the  solar  system  on  a  scale  of 
I  inch  to  a  million  miles,  we  should  need  a  sheet  of  paper 
465  feet  4  inches  wide.  On  this  sheet  the  Sun  would 
have  a  diameter  of  less  than  i  inch,  and  the  Earth  would 
be  about  the  size  of  a  pin-prick. 

If  an  express  train,  going  at  60  miles  an  hour,  had  to 
travel  round  the  Earth's  orbit,  it  would  be  more  than 
1000  years  on  the  journey.  If  the  Earth  moved  no  fas- 
ter, our  winter  would  last  more  than  250  years.  But  in 
the  solar  system  the  speeds  are  as  wonderful  as  the  sizes. 
The  Earth  turns  upon  its  axis  at  the  rate  of  1000  miles 
an  hour,  and  travels  in  its  orbit  round  the  Sun  at  the 
rate  of  more  than  1000  miles  a  minute,  or  66,000  miles  an 
hour. 

So  much  for  the  size  of  the  solar  system.  It  consists 
of  a  Sun  and  eight  planets,  and  the  outer  planet's  orbit  is 
one  of  5584  millions  of  miles  in  diameter,  which  it  would 
take  an  express  train,  at  60  miles  an  hour,  10,560  years 
to  cross. 

But  this  distance  is  as  nothing  when  we  come  to  deal 
with  the  distances  of  the  other  stars  from  our  Sun. 

The  distance  from  our  Sun  to  the  nearest  fixed  (?) 
star  is  more  than  20  millions  of  millions  of  miles.  Our 
express  train,  which  crosses  the  diameter  of  the  solar  sys- 
tem in  10,560  years,  would  take,  if  it  went  60  miles  an 
hour  day  and  night,  about  40  million  years  to  reach  the 
nearest  fixed  star  from  the  Sun. 

And  if  we  had  to  mark  the  nearest  fixed  star  on  our 
chart  made  on  a  scale  of  I  inch  to  the  million  miles,  we 
should  find  that  whereas  a  sheet  of  465  feet  would  take  in 
the  outermost  planet  ©f  the  solar  system,  a  sheet  to  take  in 


64  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

the  nearest  fixed  star  would  have  to  be  about  620  miles 
wide.  On  this  sheet,  as  wide  as  from  London  to  In- 
verness, the  Sun  would  be  represented  by  a  dot  three- 
quarters  of  an  inch  in  diameter,  and  the  Earth  by  a  pin- 
prick. 

But  these  immense  distances  only  relate  to  the  nearest 
stars.  Now,  the  nearest  stars  are  about  four  "  light 
years  "  distant  from  us.  That  is  to  say,  that  light,  trav- 
eling at  a  rate  of  about  182,000  miles  in  one  second, 
takes  four  years  to  come  from  the  nearest  fixed  star  to 
the  Earth. 

But  I  have  seen  the  distance  from  the  Earth  to  the 
Great  Nebula  in  Orion  given  as  a  thousand  light  years, 
or  250  times  the  distance  of  the  fixed  star  above  al- 
luded to. 

To  reach  that  nebula  at  60  miles  an  hour,  an  express 
train  would  have  to  travel  for  35  millions  of  years  mul- 
tiplied by  250  —  that  is  to  say,  for  8750  million  years. 

And  yet  there  are  millions  of  stars  whose  distances  are 
even  greater  than  the  distance  of  the  Great  Nebula  in 
Orion. 

How  many  stars  are  there?  No  one  can  even  guess. 
But  L.  Struve  estimates  the  number  of  those  visible  to  the 
great  telescopes  at  20  millions. 

Twenty  millions  of  suns.  And  as  for  the  size  of  these 
suns,  Sir  Robert  Ball  says  Sirius  is  ten  times  as  large  as 
our  Sun;  and  a  well-known  astronomer,  writing  in  the 
English  Mechanic  about  a  week  ago,  remarks  that  Alpha 
Orionis  (Betelgenze)  has  probably  700  times  the  light  of 
our  Sun. 

Looking  through  my  telescope,  which  is  only  3-inch 
aperture,  I  have  seen  star  clusters  of  wonderful  beauty 
in  the  Ple'iades  and  in  Cancer.  There  is,  in  the  latter 
constellation,  a  dim  star  which,  when  viewed  through  my 


ANCIENT  RELIGION  65 

glass,  becomes  a  constellation  larger,  more  brilliant,  and 
more  beautiful  than  Orion  or  the  Great  Bear.  I  have 
looked  at  these  jeweled  sun-clusters  many  a  time,  and 
wondered  over  them.  But  I  have  never  once  thought  of 
believing  that  they  were  specially  created  to  be  lesser 
lights  to  the  Earth. 

And  now  let  me  quote  from  that  grand  book  of  Richard 
A.  Proctor's,  The  Expanse  of  Heaven,  a  fine  passage  de- 
scriptive of  some  of  the  wonders  of  the  "  Milky  Way  " : 
There  are  stars  in  all  orders  of  brightness,  from 
those  which  (seen  with  the  telescope)  resemble  in  lus- 
ter the  leading  glories  of  the  firmament,  down  to  tiny 
points  of  light  only  caught  by  momentary  twinklings. 
Every  variety  of  arrangement  is  seen.  Here  the  stars 
are  scattered  as  over  the  skies  at  night;  there  they 
cluster  in  groups,  as  though  drawn  together  by  some 
irresistible  power;  in  one  region  they  seem  to  form 
sprays  of  stars  like  diamonds  sprinkled  over  fern 
leaves ;  elsewhere  they  lie  in  streams  and  rows,  in  coro- 
nets and  loops  and  festoons,  resembling  the  star  fes- 
toon which,  in  the  constellation  Perseus,  garlands  the 
black  robe  of  night.  Nor  are  varieties  of  color  wanting 
to  render  the  display  more  wonderful  and  more  beau- 
tiful. Many  of  the  stars  which  crowd  upon  the  view 
are  red,  orange,  and  yellow.  Among  them  are  groups 
of  two  and  three  and  four  (multiple  stars  as  they  are 
called),  amongst  which  blue  and  green  and  lilac  and 
purple  stars  appear,  forming  the  most  charming  con- 
trast to  the  ruddy  and  yellow  orbs  near  which  they 
are  commonly  seen. 

Millions  and  millions  —  countless  millions  of  suns.  In- 
numerable galaxies  and  systems  of  suns,  separated  by 
black  gulfs  of  space  so  wide  that  no  man  can  realize  the 
meaning  of  the  figures  which  denote  their  stretch.     Suns 


66  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

of  fire  and  ligKt,  whirling  through  vast  oceans  of  spac« 
like  swarms  of  golden  bees.  And  round  them  planets 
whirling  at  thousands  of  miles  a  minute. 

And  on  Earth  there  are  forms  of  life  so  minute  that 
millions  of  them  exist  in  a  drop  of  water.  There  are 
microscopic  creatures  more  beautiful  and  more  highly 
finished  than  any  gem,  and  more  complex  and  effective 
than  the  costliest  machine  of  human  contrivance.  In 
The  Story  of  Creation  Mr.  Ed.  Clodd  tells  us  that  one 
cubic  inch  of  rotten  stone  contains  41  thousand  milUon 
vegetable  skeletons  of  diatoms. 

I  cut  the  following  from  a  London  morning  paper: 

It  was  discovered  some  few  years  ago  that  a  peculiar  bacillus 
was  present  in  all  persons  suffering  from  typhoid,  and  in  all 
foods  and  drinks  which  spread  the  disease.  Experiments  were 
carried  out,  and  it  was  assumed,  not  without  good  reason,  that 
the  bacillus  was  the  primary  cause  of  the  malady,  and  it  was  ac- 
cordingly labeled  the  typhoid  bacillus. 

But  the  bacteriologists  further  discovered  that  the  typhoid 
bacillus  was  present  in  water  which  was  not  infectious,  and  in 
persons  who  were  not  ill,  or  had  never  been  ill,  with  typhoid. 

So  now  a  theory  is  propounded  that  a  healthy  typhoid  bacillus 
does  not  cause  typhoid,  but  that  it  is  only  when  the  bacillus  is 
itself  sick  of  a  fever,  or,  in  other  words,  is  itself  the  prey  of 
some  infinitely  minuter  organisms,  which  feed  on  it  alone,  that 
it  works  harm  to  mortal  men. 

The  bacillus  is  so  small  that  one  requires  a  powerful 
microscope  to  see  him,  and  his  blood  may  be  infested 
with  bacilli  as  small  to  him  as  he  is  to  us. 

And  there  are  millions,  and  more  likely  billions,  of 
suns! 

Talk  about  Aladdin's  palace,  Sinbad's  valley  of  dia- 
monds, Macbeth's  witches,  or  the  Irish  fairies!  How 
petty  are  their  exploits,  how  tawdry  are  their  splendors, 
how  paltry  are  their  riches,  when  we  compare  them  to 
the  romance  of  science. 

When  did  a  poet  conceive  an  idea^  so  vast  and  so  as- 


ANCIENT  RELIGION  67 

tounding  as  the  theory  of  evolution?  What  are  a  few 
paltry  lumps  of  crystallized  carbon  compared  to  a  galaxy 
of  a  million  million  suns?  Did  any  Eastern  inventor  of 
marvels  ever  suggest  such  a  human  feat  as  that  accom- 
plished by  the  men  who  have,  during  the  last  handful  of 
centuries,  spelt  out  the  mystery  of  the  universe  ?  These 
scientists  have  worked  miracles  before  which  those  of  the 
ancient  priests  and  magicians  are  mere  tricks  of  hanky- 
panky. 

Look  at  the  romance  of  geology;  at  the  romance  of 
astronomy ;  at  the  romance  of  chemistry ;  at  the  romance 
of  the  telescope,  and  the  microscope,  and  the  prism. 
More  wonderful  than  all,  consider  the  story  of  how  flying 
atoms  in  space  became  suns,  how  suns  made  planets, 
how  planets  changed  from  spheres  of  flame  and  raging 
fiery  storm  to  worlds  of  land  and  water.  How  in  the 
water  specks  of  jelly  became  fishes,  fishes  reptiles,  reptiles 
mammals,  mammals  monkeys,  monkeys  men ;  until,  from 
the  fanged  and  taloned  cannibal,  roosting  in  a  forest, 
have  developed  art  and  music,  religion  and  science ;  and 
the  children  of  the  jellyfish  can  weigh  the  suns,  measure 
the  stellar  spaces,  ride  on  the  ocean  or  in  the  air,  and 
speak  to  each  other  from  continent  to  continent. 

Talk  about  fairy  tales !  what  is  this  ?  You  may  look 
through  a  telescope,  and  see  the  nebula  that  is  to  make 
a  sun  floating,  like  a  luminous  mist,  three  hundred  million 
miles  away.  You  may  look  again,  and  see  another  sun 
in  process  of  formation.  You  may  look  again,  and  see 
others  almost  completed.  You  may  look  again  and 
again,  and  see  millions  of  suns  and  systems  spread  out 
across  the  heavens  Hke  rivers  of  living  gems. 

You  will  say  that  all  this  speaks  of  a  Creator.  I  shall 
not  contradict  you.  But  what  kind  of  Creator  must  He 
be  who  has  created  such  a  universe  as  this? 


68  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

Do  you  think  He  is  the  kind  of  Creator  to  make 
blunders  and  commit  crimes  ?  Can  you,  after  once  think- 
ing of  the  Milky  Way,  with  its  rivers  of  suns,  and  the 
drop  of  water  teeming  with  spangled  dragons,  and  the 
awful  abysses  of  dark  space,  through  which  comets 
shoot  at  a  speed  a  thousand  times  as  fast  as  an  express 
train  —  can  you,  after  seeing  Saturn's  rings,  and  Jupi- 
ter's moons,  and  the  clustered  gems  of  Hercules,  consent 
for  a  moment  to  the  allegation  that  the  creator  of  all 
this  power  and  glory  got  angry  with  men,  and  threatened 
them  with  scabs  and  sores,  and  plagues  of  lice  and  frogs  ? 
Can  you  suppose  that  such  a  creator  would,  after  thou- 
sands of  years  of  effort,  have  failed  even  now  to  make 
His  repeated  revelations  comprehensible?  Do  you  be- 
lieve that  He  would  be  driven  across  the  unimaginable 
gulfs  of  space,  out  of  the  transcendent  glory  of  His 
myriad  resplendent  suns,  to  die  on  a  cross,  in  order  to 
win  back  to  Him  the  love  of  the  puny  creatures  on  one 
puny  planet  in  the  marvelous  universe  His  power  had 
made? 

Do  you  believe  that  the  God  who  imagined  and  created 
such  a  universe  could  be  petty,  base,  cruel,  revengeful, 
and  capable  of  error?     I  do  not  believe  it. 

And  now  let  us  examine  the  character  and  conduct  of 
this  God  as  depicted  for  us  in  the  Bible  —  the  book 
which  is  alleged  to  have  been  directly  revealed  by  God 
Himself. 


JEHOVAH 

The  Adopted  Heavenly  Father  of  Christianity 

In  giving  the  above  brief  sketch  of  the  known  universe 
my  object  was  to  suggest  that  the  Creator  of  a  universe 
of  such  scope  and  grandeur  must  be  a  Being  of  vast 
power  and  the  loftiest  dignity. 

Now,  the  Christians  claim  that  their  God  created  this 
universe  —  not  the  universe  He  is  described,  in  His  own 
inspired  word,  as  creating,  but  the  universe  revealed  by 
science ;  the  universe  of  twenty  millions  of  suns. 

And  the  Christians  claim  that  this  God  is  a  God  of 
love,  a  God  omnipotent,  omnipresent,  and  eternal. 

And  the  Christians  claim  that  this  great  God,  the 
Creator  of  our  wonderful  universe,  is  the  God  revealed 
to  us  in  the  Bible. 

Let  us,  then,  go  to  the  Bible,  and  find  out  for  our- 
selves whether  the  God  therein  revealed  is  any  more  like 
the  ideal  Christian  God,  than  the  universe  therein  re- 
vealed is  like  the  universe  since  discovered  by  man  with- 
out the  aid  of  divine  inspiration. 

As  for  the  biblical  God,  Jahweh,  or  Jehovah,  I  shall 
try  to  show  from  the  Bible  itself  that  He  was  not  all- 
wise,  nor  all-powerful  nor  omnipresent;  that  He  was 
not  merciful  nor  just;  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  He 
was  fickle,  jealous,  dishonorable,  immoral,  vindictive, 
barbarous,  and  cruel. 

Neither  was  He,  in  any  sense  of  the  words,  great  nor 
good.     But,  in  fact.  He  was  a  tribal  god,  an  idol,  made 

69 


70  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

by  man ;  and,  as  the  idol  of  a  savage  and  ignorant  tribe, 
was  Himself  a  savage  and  ignorant  monster. 

First,  then,  as  to  my  claim  that  Jahweh,  or  Jehovah, 
was  a  tribal  god.  I  shall  begin  by  quoting  from  Shall 
We  Understand  th€  Bible?  by  the  Rev.  T.  Rhondda 
Williams : 

The  theology  of  the  Jahwist  is  very  childish  and  elementary, 
though  it  is  not  all  on  the  same  level.    He  thinks  of  God  very 
much  as  in  human  form,  holding  intercourse  with  men  almost  as 
one  of  themselves.    His  document  begins  with  Genesis  ii,  4,  and 
its  first  portion  continues,  without  break,  to  the  end  of  chapter 
iv.    This    portion    contains    the    story    of    Eden.    Here    Jahew 
molds  dust  into  human   form,^  and   breathes  into   it;   plants  a 
garden,    and  puts  the  man  in  it.    Jahweh  comes  to  the  man  in 
his  sleep,  and  takes  part  of  his  body  to  make  a  woman,  and  so 
skillfully,  apparently,  that  the  man  never  wakes  under  the  opera- 
tion.   Jahweh  walks  in  the  garden  like  a  man  in  the  cool  of  the 
day.    He  even  makes  coats  for  Adam  and  Eve.    Further  on  the 
Jahwist  has  a  flood  story,  in  which  Jahweh  repents  that  he  had 
made  man,  and  decides  to  drown  him,  saving  only  one  family. 
When  all  is  over,  and  Noah  sacrifices  on  his  new  altar,  Jahweh 
smells  a  sweet    savor,  just  as  a  hungry  man  smells  welcome  food. 
When  men  build  the  Tower  of  Babel,  Jahweh  comes  down  to 
see  it  — he  cannot   see  it   from  where  he  is.     In   Genesis  xviii 
the  Jahwist  tells  a  story  of  three  men  coming  to  Abraham's  tent. 
Abraham  gives  them  water  to  wash  their  feet,  and  bread  to  eat, 
and  Sarah  makes  cakes  for  them,  and  "  they  did  eat " ;  altogether, 
they  seemed  to  have  had  a  nice  time.    As  the  story  goes  on,  he 
leaves  you  to  infer  that  one  of  these  was  Jahweh  himself.    It  is 
J.  who  describes  the  story  of  Jacob  wrestling  with  some  mys- 
terious person,  who,  by  inference,  is  Jahweh.    He  tells  a  very 
strange  story  in  Exodus  iv,  24,  that  when  Moses  was  returning 
into  Egypt,  at  Jahweh's  own  request,  Jahweh  met  him  at  a  lodg- 
ing-place, and  sought  to  kill  him.     In  Exodus  xiv,  15,  it  is  said 
Jahweh  took  the  wheels  off  the  chariots  of  the  Egyptians.     If 
we  wanted  to  believe  that  such  statements  were  true  at  all,  we 
should  resort  to  the  device  of  saying  they  were  figurative.     But 
J.  meant  them  literally.     The  Jahwist  would  have  no  difficulty  in 
thinking  of  God  in  this  way.     The  story  of  the  destruction  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah  belongs  to  this  same  document,  in  which, 
you   remember,  Jahweh   says :   "  I   will   go  down  now,   and   see 
whether  they  have  done  altogether  according  to  the  cry  of  it 
which  is  come  unto  me;  and  if  not,  I  will  know"   (Gtn.  xviii, 
21).    That  God  was  omniscient  and  omnipresent  had  never  oc- 
curred to  the  Jahwist.     Jahweh,  like  a  man,  had  to  go  and  see  if 
he  wanted  to  know.     There  is,  however,  some  compensation  in 
the  fact  that  he  can  move  about  without  difficulty  —  he  can  come 


JEHOVAH  JP 

down  and  go  up.  One  might  say,  perhaps,  that  in  J.,  though 
Jahweh  cannot  be  everywhere,  he  can  go  to  almost  any  place. 
All  this  is  just  like  a  child's  thought.  The  child,  at  Christmas, 
can  believe  that,  though  Santa  Claus  cannot  be  everywhere,  he 
can  move  about  with  wonderful  facility,  and,  though  he  is  a  man, 
he  is  rather  mysterious.  The  Jahwist's  thought  of  God  repre- 
sents the  childhood  stage  of  the  national  life. 

Later,  Mr.  Williams  writes: 

All  this  shows  that  at  one  time  Jahweh  was  one  of  many 
Gods;  other  gods  were  real  gods.  The  Israelites  themselves  be- 
lieved, for  example,  that  Chemosh  was  as  truly  the  god  of  the 
Moabites  as  Jahweh  was  theirs,  and  they  speak  of  Chemosh  giv- 
ing territory  to  his  people  to  inherit,  just  as  Jahweh  had  given 
them  territory  (Judg.  xi.  24). 

Just  as  a  King  of  Israel  would  speak  of  Jahweh,  the  King  of 
Moab  speaks  of  Chemosh.  His  god  sends  him  to  battle.  If  he 
is  defeated,  the  god  is  angry;  if  he  succeeds,  the  god  is  favor- 
able. And  we  have  seen  that  there  was  a  time  when  the  Israelite 
believed  Chemosh  to  be  as  real  for  Moab  as  Jahweh  for  him- 
self. You  find  the  same  thing  everywhere.  The  old  Assyrian 
kings  said  exactly  the  same  thing  of  the  god  Assur. 

Assur  sent  them  to  battle,  gave  defeat  or  victory,  as  he  thought 
fit.  The  history,  however,  is  very  obscure  up  to  the  time  of 
Samuel,  and  uncertain  for  some  time  after.  Samuel  organized 
a  Jahweh  party.  David  worshiped  Jahweh  only,  though  he  re- 
gards it  as  possible  to  be  driven  out  of  Jahweh's  inheritance  into 
that  of  other  gods  (i  Sam.  xxvi.  19).  Solomon  was  not  ex- 
clusively devoted  to  Jahweh,  for  he  built  places  of  worship  for 
other  deities  as  well. 

In  the  chapter  on  "  Different  Conceptions  of  Prov- 
idence in  the  Bible ''  Mr.  Williams  says : 

I  have  asked  you  to  read  Judges  iii.  15-30,  iv.  17-24,  v.  24-31. 
The  first  is  the  story  of  Ehud  getting  at  Eglon,  Israel's  enemy, 
by  deceit,  and  killing  him  —  an  act  followed  by  a  great  slaughter 
of  Moabites.  The  second  is  the  story  of  Jael  pretending  to  play 
the  friend  to  Sisera,  and  then  murdering  him.  The  third  is  the 
eulogy  of  Jael  for  doing  so,  as  "blessed  above  women,"  in  the 
so-called  Song  of  Deborah.  Here,  you  see.  Providence  is  only 
concerned  with  the  fortunes  of  Israel ;  any  deceit  and  any  cruelty 
is  right  which  brings  success  to  this  people.  Providence  is  not 
concerned  with  morality;  nor  is  it  concerned  with  individuals, 
except  as  the  individual  serves  or  opposes  Israel. 

In  these  two  chapters  Mr.  Williams  shows  that  the 
early  conception  of  God  was  a  very  low  one,  and  that 


72  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

it  underwent  considerable  change.  In  fact,  he  says,  with 
great  candor  and  courage,  that  the  early  Bible  concep- 
tion of  God  is  one  which  we  cannot  now  accept. 

With  this  I  entirely  agree.  We  cannot  accept  as  the 
God  of  Creation  this  savage  idol  of  an  obscure  tribe, 
and  we  have  renounced  Him,  and  are  ashamed  of  Him, 
not  because  of  any  later  divine  revelation,  but  because 
mankind  have  become  too  enlightened,  too  humane,  and 
too  honorable  to  tolerate  Jehovah. 

And  yet  the  Christian  religion  adopted  Jehovah,  and 
called  upon  its  followers  to  worship  and  believe  Him,  on 
pain  of  torture,  or  death,  or  excommunication  in  this 
world,  and  of  hell-fire  in  the  world  to  come.  It  is  as- 
tounding. 

But  lest  the  evidence  offered  by  Mr.  Williams  should 
not  be  considered  sufficient,  I  shall  quote  from  another 
very  useful  book,  The  Evolution  of  the  Idea  of  God, 
by  the  late  Grant  Allen.  In  this  book  Mr.  Allen  clearly 
traces  the  origins  of  the  various  ideas  of  God,  and  we 
hear  of  Jehovah  again,  as  a  kind  of  tribal  stone  idol, 
carried  about  in  a  box  or  ark.  I  will  quote  as  fully  as 
space  permits : 

But  Jahweh  was  an  object  of  portable  size,  for,  omitting  for 
the  present  the  descriptions  in  the  Pentateuch  —  which  seem 
likely  to  be  of  later  date,  and  not  too  trustworthy,  through  their 
strenuous  Jehovistic  editing  —  he  was  carried  from  Shiloh  in  his 
ark  to  the  front  during  the  great  battle  with  the  Philistines  at 
Ebenezer ;  and  the  Philistines  were  afraid,  for  they  said,  "  A 
god  is  come  into  the  camp."  But  when  the  Philistines  captured 
the  ark,  the  rival  god,  Dagon,  fell  down  and  broke  in  pieces  — 
so  Hebrew  legend  declared  —  before  the  face  of  Jahweh.  After 
the  Philistines  restored  the  sacred  object,  it  rested  for  a  time  at 
Kirjath-jearim  till  David,  on  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  from  the 
Jebusites,  went  down  to  that  place  to  bring  up  from  thence  the 
ark  of  the  god ;  and  as  it  went,  on  a  new  cart,  they  "  played 
before  Jahweh  on  all  manner  of  instruments,"  and  David  him- 
self "  danced  before  Jahweh."  .  .  .  The  children  of  Israel 
in  early  times  carried  about  with  them  a  tribal  god,  Jahweh, 
whose  presence  in  their  midst  was  intimately  connected  with  a 


JEHOVAH  73 

certain  ark  or  chest  containing  a  stone  object  or  objects.  This 
chest  was  readily  portable,  and  could  be  carried  to  the  front  in 
case  of  warfare.  They  did  not  know  the  origin  of  the  object 
in  the  ark  with  certainty;  but  they  regarded  it  emphatically  as 
"Jahweh  their  god,  which  led  them  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt."    ... 

1  do  not  see,  therefore,  how  we  can  easily  avoid  the  obvious 
inference  that  Jahweh,  the  god  of  the  Hebrews,  who  later  be- 
came sublimated  and  etherealized  into  the  God  of  Christianity, 
was,  in  his  origin,  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  ancestral 
sacred  stone  of  the  people  of  Israel,  however  sculptured,  and, 
perhaps,  in  the  very  last  resort  of  all,  the  unhewn  monumental 
pillar  of  some  early  Semitic  sheikh  or  chieftain. 

It  was,  indeed,  as  the  Rev.  C.  E.  Beeby  says,  in  his 
book  Creed  and  Life,  a  sad  mistake  of  St.  Augustine  to 
tack  this  tribal  fetish  in  his  box  on  to  the  Christian 
rehgion  as  the  All-Father,  and  Creator  of  the  Universe. 
For  Jehovah  was  a  savage  war-god,  and,  as  such,  was 
impotent  to  save  the  tribe  who  worshiped  him. 

But  let  us  look  further  into  the  accounts  of  this  orig- 
inal God  of  the  Christians,  and  see  how  he  comported 
himself,  and  let  us  put  our  examples  under  separate 
heads;  thus: 

Jehovah's  Anger 

Jahweh's  bad  temper  is  constantly  displayed  in  the 
Bible.  Jahweh  made  a  man,  whom  he  supposed  to  be 
perfect.  When  the  man  turned  bad  on  his  hands,  Jahweh 
was  angry,  and  cursed  him  and  his  seed  for  thousands 
of  years.  This  vindictive  act  is  accepted  by  the  Apostle 
Paul  as  a  natural  thing  for  a  God  of  Love  to  do. 

Jahweh,  who  had  already  cursed  all  the  seed  of  Adam, 
was  so  angry  about  man's  sin,  in  the  time  of  Noah,  that 
he  decided  to  drown  all  the  people  on  the  earth  except 
Noah's  family,  and  not  only  that,  but  to  drown  nearly 
all  the  innocent  animals  as  well. 

When  the  children  of  Irsael,  who  had  eaten  nothing 


74  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

but  manna  for  forty  years,  asked  Jahweh  for  a  change 
of  diet,  Jahweh  lost  his  temper  again,  and  sent  amongst 
them  "  fiery  serpents,"  so  that  "  much  people  of  Israel 
died."  But  still  the  desire  for  other  food  remained, 
and  the  Jews  wept  for  meat.  Then  the  Lord  ordered 
Moses  to  speak  to  the  people  as  follows : 

.  .  .  The  Lord  will  give  you  flesh,  and  ye  shall  eat.  Ye 
shall  not  eat  one  day,  nor  two  days,  nor  five  days,  neither  ten 
days  nor  twenty  days ;  but  even  a  whole  month,  until  it  come  out 
of  your  nostrils,  and  it  be  loathsome  unto  you ;  because  that  ye 
have  despised  the  Lx)rd,  which  is  among  you,  and  have  wept  be- 
fore Him,  saying,  Why  came  we  forth  out  of  Egypt? 

Then  Jahwah  sent  immense  numbers  of  quails,  and  the 
people  ate  them,  and  the  anger  of  their  angry  god  came 
upon  them  in  the  act,  and  smote  them  with  "  a  very  great 
plague." 

One  more  instance  out  of  many.  In  the  First  Book  of 
Samuel  we  are  told  that  on  the  return  of  Jahweh  in  his 
ark  from  the  custody  of  the  Philistines  some  men  of 
Bethshemesh  looked  into  the  ark.  This  made  Jahweh 
so  angry  that  he  smote  the  people,  and  slew  more  than 
fifty  thousand  of  them. 

The  Injustice  of  Jehovah 

I  have  already  instanced  Jahweh's  injustice  in  cursing 
the  seed  of  Adam  for  Adam's  sin,  and  in  destroying  the 
whole  animal  creation,  except  a  selected  few,  because  he 
was  angry  with  mankind.  In  the  Book  of  Samuel  we  are 
told  that  Jahweh  sent  three  years'  famine  upon  the  whole 
nation  because  of  the  sins  of  Saul,  and  that  his  wrath 
was  only  appeased  by  the  hanging  in  cold  blood  of  seven 
of  Saul's  sons  for  the  evil  committed  by  their  father. 

In  the  Book  of  Joshua  is  the  story  of  how  Achan, 
having  stolen  some  gold,  was  ordered  to  be  burnt;  and 


JEHOVAH  75 

how  Joshua  and  the  IsraeUtes  took  "  Achan,  and  his 
sons,  and  his  daughters,  and  his  oxen,  and  his  asses,  and 
his  sheep,  and  his  tent,  and  all  that  he  had,"  and  stoned 
them  to  death,  and  "  burnt  them  with  fire." 

In  the  First  Book  of  Chronicles  the  devil  persuades 
David  to  take  a  census  of  Israel.  And  again  Jahweh 
acted  in  bhnd  wrath  and  injustice,  for  he  sent  a  pesti- 
lence, which  slew  seventy  thousand  of  the  people  for 
David's  fault.     But  David  he  allowed  to  live. 

In  Samuel  we  learn  how  Jahweh,  because  of  an  attack 
upon  the  Israelites  four  hundred  years  before  the  time 
of  speaking,  ordered  Saul  to  destroy  the  Amalekites, 
"  man  and  woman,  infant  and  suckling,  ox  and  sheep, 
camel  and  ass."  And  Saul  did  as  he  was  directed;  but 
because  he  spared  King  Agag,  the  Lord  deprived  him 
of  the  crown,  and  made  David  king  in  his  stead. 

The  Immorality  of  Jehovah 

In  the  Second  Book  of  Chronicles  Jehovah  gets  Ahab, 
King  of  Israel,  killed  by  putting  Hes  into  the  mouths  of 
the  prophets: 

And  the  Lord  said,  Who  shall  entice  Ahab,  king  of  Israel, 
that  he  may  go  up  and  fall  at  Ramoth-gilead?  And  one  spake 
saying  after  this  manner,  and  another  saying  after  that  man- 
ner. 

Then  there  came  out  a  spirit,  and  stood  before  the  Lord,  and 
said,  I  will  entice  him.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  him,  Where- 
with ? 

And  he  said,  I  will  go  out,  and  be  a  lying  spirit  in  the  mouth 
of  all  his  prophets.  And  the  Lord  said,  Thou  shalt  entice  him, 
and  thou  shalt  also  prevail:  go  out,  and  do  even  so. 

In  Deuteronomy  are  the  following  orders  as  to  con- 
duct in  war: 

When  thou  goest  forth  to  war  against  thine  enemies,  and  the 
Lord  thy  God  hath  delivered  them  into  thine  hands,  and  thou 
hast  taken  them  captive. 


y6  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

And  seest  among  the  captives  a  beautiful  woman,  and  hast  a 
desire  unto  her,  that  thou  wouldest  have  her  to  thy  wife; 

Then  thou  shalt  bring  her  home  to  thine  house;  and  she  shall 
shave  her  head,  and  pare  her  nails; 

And  she  shall  put  the  raiment  of  her  captivity  from  off  her, 
and  shall  remain  in  thine  house,  and  bewail  her  father  and  her 
mother  a  full  month;  and  after  that  thou  shalt  go  in  unto  her, 
and  be  her  husband,  and  she  shall  be  thy  wife. 

And  it  shall  be,  if  thou  have  no  delight  in  her,  then  thou  shall 
let  her  go  whither  she  will;  but  thou  shalt  not  sell  her  at  all 
for  money,  thou  shalt  not  make  merchandise  of  her,  because 
thou  hast  humbled  her. 

The  children  of  Israel,  having  been  sent  out  by  Jahweh 
to  punish  the  Midianites,  "  slew  all  the  males."  But 
Moses  was  wroth,  because  they  had  spared  the  women, 
and  he  ordered  them  to  kill  all  the  married  women,  and 
to  take  the  single  women  "  for  themselves."  The  Lord 
allowed  this  brutal  act  —  which  included  the  murder  of 
all  the  male  children  —  to  be  consummated.  There  were 
sixteen  thousand  females  spared,  of  which  we  are  told 
that  "  the  Lord's  tribute  was  thirty  and  two." 

The  Cruelty  of  Jehovah 

I  could  find  in  the  Bible  more  instances  of  Jahweh's 
cruelty  and  barbarity  and  lack  of  mercy  than  I  can  find 
room  for. 

In  Deuteronomy  the  Lord  hardens  the  heart  of  Sihon, 
King  of  Hesbon,  to  resist  the  Jews,  and  then  "  utterly 
destroyed  the  men,  women,  and  little  ones  of  every  city.*' 

In  Leviticus,  Jahweh  threatens  that  if  the  Israelites 
will  not  reform  he  will  "  walk  contrary  to  them  in  fury, 
and  they  shall  eat  the  Hesh  of  their  own  sons  and  daugh- 
ters." 

In  Deuteronomy  is  an  account  of  how  Bashan  was  ut- 
terly destroyed,  men,  women,  and  children  being  slain. 

In  the  same  book  occur  the  following  passages :  — 


JEHOVAH  'j'j 

When  the  Lord  thy  God  shall  bring  thee  into  the  land  whither 
thou  goest  to  possess  it,  and  hath  cast  out  many  nations  before 
thee,  the  Hittites,  and  the  Girgashites,  and  the  Amorites,  and  the 
Canaanites,  and  the  Perizzites,  and  the  Hivites,  and  the  Jebusites, 
seven  nations  greater  and  mightier  than  thou; 

And  when  the  Lord  thy  God  shall  deliver  them  before  thee; 
thou  shalt  smite  them,  and  utterly  destroy  them;  thou  shalt 
make  no  covenant  with  them,  nor  show  mercy  unto  them. 

That  is  from  chapter  vii.  In  chapter  xx.  there  are 
further  instructions  of  a  like  horrible  kind: 

Thus  shalt  thou  do  unto  all  the  cities  which  are  very  far  off 
from,  thee,  which  are  not  of  the  cities  of  these  nations. 

But  of  the  cities  of  these  people,  which  the  Lord  thy  God 
doth  give  thee  for  an  inheritance,  thou  shalt  save  alive  nothing 
that  breatheth: 

But  thou  shalt  utterly  destroy  them;  namely,  the  Hittites,  and 
the  Amorites,  the  Canaanites,  and  the  Perizzites,  the  Hivites,  and 
the  Jebusites;  as  the  Lord  thy  God  hath  commanded  thee. 

And  here,  in  a  long  quotation,  is  an  example  of  the 
mercy  of  Jahweh,  and  his  faculty  for  cursing: 

The  Lord  shall  make  the  pestilence  cleave  unto  thee,  until  he 
have  consumed  thee  from  off  the  land,  whither  thou  goest  to 
possess  it. 

The  Lord  shall  smite  thee  with  a  consumption,  and  with  a 
fever,  and  with  an  inflammation,  and  with  an  extreme  burning, 
and  with  the  sword,  and  with  blasting,  and  with  mildew;  and 
they  shall  pursue  thee  until  thou  perish. 

And  thy  heaven  that  is  over  thy  head  shall  be  brass,  and  the 
earth  that  is  under  thee  shall  be  iron. 

The  Lord  shall  make  the  rain  of  thy  land  powder  and  dust; 
from  heaven  shall  it  come  down  upon  thee,  until  thou  be  de- 
stroyed. 

The  Lord  shall  cause  thee  to  be  smitten  before  thine  enemies: 
thou  shalt  go  out  one  way  against  them,  and  flee  seven  ways  be- 
fore them;  and  shalt  be  removed  into  all  the  kingdoms  of  the 
earth. 

And  thy  carcass  shall  be  meat  unto  all  fowls  of  the  air,  and 
unto  the  beasts  of  the  earth,  and  no  man  shall  fray  them  away. 

The  Lord  will  smite  thee  with  the  botch  of  Egypt,  and  with 
the  emerods,  and  with  the  scab,  and  with  the  itch,  whereof  thou 
canst  not  be  healed. 

The  Lord  shall  smite  thee  with  madness,  and  blindness,  and 
astonishment  of  heart:    .    .    . 

And  he  shall  besiege  thee  in  all  thy  gates,  until  thy  high  and 


y%  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

fenced  walls  come  down,  wherein  thou  trustedst,  throughout  all 
thy  land :  and  he  shall  besiege  thee  in  all  thy  gates  throughout  all 
thy  land,  which  the  Lord  thy  God  hath  given  thee. 

And  thou  shalt  eat  the  fruit  of  thine  own  body,  the  flesh  of  thy 
sons  and  of  thy  daughters,  which  the  Lord  thy  God  hath  given 
thee,  in  the  siege,  and  in  the  straitness,  wherewith  thine  enemies 
shall  distress  thee: 

So  that  the  man  that  is  tender  among  you,  and  very  delicate, 
his  eye  shall  be  evil  towards  his  brother,  and  toward  the  wife 
of  his  bosom,  and  toward  the  remnant  of  his  children  which  he 
shall  leave.    .    .    . 

For  a  fire  is  kindled  in  mine  anger,  and  shall  burn  into  the 
lowest  hell,  and  shall  consume  the  earth  with  her  increase,  and 
set  on  fire  the  foundations  of  the  mountains. 

I  will  heap  mischiefs  upon  them;  I  will  spend  mine  arrows 
upon  them. 

They  shall  be  burnt  with  hunger,  and  devoured  with  burning 
heat,  and  with  bitter  destruction:  I  will  also  send  the  teeth  of 
beasts  upon  them,  with  the  poison  of  serpents  of  the  dust. 

The  sword  without,  and  terror  within,  shall  destroy  both  the 
voung  man  and  the  virgin,  the  suckling  also  with  the  man  of  gray 
hairs. 

I  think  I  have  quoted  enough  to  show  that  what  I  say 
of  the  Jewish  God  Jehovah  is  based  on  fact.  But  I 
could,  if  needful,  heap  proof  on  proof,  for  the  books  of 
the  Old  Testament  reek  with  blood,  and  are  horrible  with 
atrocities. 

Now,  consider,  is  the  God  of  whom  we  have  been 
reading  a  God  of  love ?  Is  He  the  Father  of  Christ?  Is 
He  not  rather  the  savage  idol  of  a  savage  tribe? 

Man  and  his  gods:  what  a  tragi-comedy  it  is.  Man 
has  never  seen  one  of  his  gods,  never  heard  the  voice  of 
one  of  his  gods,  does  not  know  the  shape,  expression,  or 
bearing  of  one  of  his  gods.  Yet  man  has  cursed  man, 
hated  man,  hunted  man,  tortured  man,  and  murdered 
man,  for  the  sake  of  shadows  and  fantasies  of  his  own 
terror,  or  vanity,  or  desire.  We  tiny,  vain  feeblenesses, 
we  fussy  ephemera ;  we  sting  each  other,  hate  each  other, 
hiss  at  each  other,  for  the  sake  of  the  monster  gods  of 
our  own  delirium.  As  we  are  whirled  upon  our  spin- 
ning, glowing  planet  through  the  unfathomable  spaces 


JEHOVAH  79 

where  myriads  of  suns,  like  golden  bees,  gleam  through 
the  awful  mystery  of  "  the  vast  void  night,"  what  are  the 
phantom  gods  to  us  ?  They  are  no  more  than  the  water- 
spouts on  the  ocean,  or  the  fleeting  shadows  on  the  hills. 
But  the  man,  and  the  woman,  and  the  child,  and  the  dog 
with  its  wistful  eyes :  these  know  us,  touch  us,  appeal  to 
us,  love  us,  serve  us,  grieve  us. 

Shall  we  kill  these,  or  revile  them,  or  desert  them,  for 
the.  sake  of  the  lurid  ghost  in  the  cloud,  or  the  fetish  in 
his  box? 

Do  you  think  the  bloodthirsty  vindictive  Jahweh,  who 
prized  nothing  but  his  own  aggrandizement,  and  slew  or 
cursed  all  who  offended  him,  is  the  Creator,  the  same 
who  made  the  jewels  of  the  Pleiades,  and  the  resplendent 
mystery  of  the  Milky  Way? 

Is  this  unspeakable  monster,  Jahweh,  the  Father  of 
Christ  ?  Is  he  the  God  who  inspired  Buddha,  and  Shake- 
speare, and  Herschel,  and  Beethoven,  and  Darwin,  and 
Plato,  and  Bach?  No;  not  he.  But  in  warfare  and 
massacre,  in  rapine  and  in  rape,  in  black  revenge  and 
deadly  malice,  in  slavery,  and  polygamy,  and  the  debase- 
ment of  women ;  and  in  the  pomps,  vanities,  and  greeds 
of  royalty,  of  clericalism,  and  of  usury  and  barter  — 
we  may  easily  discern  the  influence  of  his  ferocious  and 
abominable  personality.  It  is  time  to  have  done  with 
this  nightmare  fetish  of  a  murderous  tribe  of  savages. 
We  have  no  use  for  him.  We  have  no  criminal  so  ruth- 
less nor  so  blood-guilty  as  he.  He  is  not  fit  to  touch 
our  cities,  imperfect  as  we  are.  The  thought  of  him  de- 
files and  nauseates.  We  should  think  him  too  horrible 
and  pitiless  for  a  devil,  this  red-handed,  black-hearted 
Jehovah  of  the  Jews. 

And  yet :  in  the  inspired  Book,  in  the  Holy  Bible,  this 
awful  creature  is  still  enshrined  as  "  God  the  Father 


8o  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

Almighty."  It  is  marvelous.  It  is  beyond  the  compre- 
hension of  any  man  not  blinded  by  superstition,  not 
warped  by  prejudice  and  old-time  convention.  This  the 
God  of  Heaven?  This  the  Father  of  Christ?  This  the 
Creator  of  the  Milky  Way?  No.  He  will  not  do.  He 
is  not  big  enough.  He  is  not  good  enough.  He  is  not 
clean  enough.  He  is  a  spiritual  nightmare :  a  bad  dream 
born  in  savage  minds  of  terror  and  ignorance  and  a  tiger- 
ish lust  for  blood. 

But  if  He  is  not  the  Most  High,  if  He  is  not  the 
Heavenly  Father,  if  He  is  not  the  King  of  kings,  the 
Bible  is  not  an  inspired  book,  and  its  claim  to  divine 
revelation  will  not  stand. 


THE  HEROES  OF  THE  BIBLE 

Carlyle  said  we  might  judge  a  people  by  their  heroes. 
The  heroes  of  the  Bible,  like  the  God  of  the  Bible,  are 
immoral  savages.  That  is  because  the  Bible  is  a  compila- 
tion from  the  Hterature  of  savage  and  immoral  tribes. 

Had  the  Bible  been  the  word  of  God  we  should  have 
found  in  it  a  lofty  and  a  pure  ideal  of  God.  We  should 
not  have  found  in  it  open  approval  —  divine  approval  — 
of  such  unspeakable  savages  as  Moses,  David,  Solomon, 
Jacob,  and  Lot. 

Let  us  consider  the  lives  of  a  few  of  the  Bible  heroes. 
We  will  begin  with  Moses. 

We  used  to  be  taught  in  school  that  Moses  was  the 
meekest  man  the  world  has  known:  and  we  used  to 
marvel. 

It  is  written  in  the  second  chapter  of  Exodus  thus : 

And  it  came  to  pass  in  those  days,  when  Moses  was  grown, 
that  he  went  out  unto  his  brethren,  and  looked  on  their  bur- 
dens :  and  he  spied  an  Egyptian  smiting  an  Hebrew,  one  of  his 
brethren. 

And  he  looked  this  way  and  that  way,  and  when  he  saw  that 
there  was  no  man,  he  slew  the  Egyptian,  and  hid  him  in  the  -sand. 

And  when  he  went  out  the  second  day,  behold,  two  men  of  the 
Hebrews  strove  together :  and  he  said  to  him  that  did  the  wrong, 
Wherefore  smitest  thou  thy  fellow?  And  he  said.  Who  made 
thee  a  prince  and  a  judge  over  us?  intendest  thou  to  kill  me  as 
thou  killest  the  Egyptian?  And  Moses  feared,  and  said,  Surely 
this  thing  is  known. 

The  meekest  of  men  slays  an  Egyptian  deliberately  and 
in  cold  blood.  It  may  be  pleaded  that  the  Egyptian  was 
doing  wrong;  but  the  remarks  of  the  Hebrew  suggest 

8i 


B2  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

that  even  the  countrymen  of  Moses  looked  upon  his  act 
of  violence  with  disfavor. 

But  the  meekness  of  Moses  is  further  illustrated  in  the 
laws  attributed  to  him,  in  which  the  death  penalty  is  al- 
most as  common  as  it  was  in  England  in  the  Middle 
Ages. 

Also,  in  the  thirty-first  chapter  of  Numbers  we  have 
the  following  story.  The  Lord  commands  Moses  to 
*'  avenge  the  children  of  Israel  of  the  Midianites,"  after 
which  Moses  is  to  die.     Moses  sends  out  an  army : 

And  they  warred  against  the  Midianites,  as  the  Lord  com- 
manded Moses ;  and  they  slew  all  the  males. 

And  they  slew  the  kings  of  Midian,  besides  the  rest  of  them 
that  were  slain ;  namely,  Evi,  and  Rekem,  and  Zur,  and  Hur,  and 
Reba,  five  kings  of  Midian:  Balaam  also  the  son  of  Beor  they 
slew  with  the  sword. 

And  the  children  of  Israel  took  all  the  women  of  Midian 
captives,  and  their  little  ones,  and  took  the  spoil  of  all  their 
cattle,  and  all  their  flocks,  and  all  their  goods. 

And  they  burnt  all  their  cities  wherein  they  dwelt,  and  all  their 
goodly  castles,  with  fire. 

And  they  took  all  the  spoil,  and  all  the  prey,  both  of  men  and 
of  beasts.     .     .     . 

And  Moses  was  wroth  with  the  officers  of  the  host,  with  the 
captains  over  thousands,  and  captains  over  hundreds,  which 
came  from  the  battle. 

And  Moses  said  unto  them,  Have  ye  saved  all  the  women 
alive  ? 

Behold,  these  called  the  children  of  Israel,  through  the  counsel 
of  Balaam,  to  commit  trespass  against  the  Lord  in  the  matter  of 
Peor,  and  there  was  a  plague  among  the  congregation  of  the 
Lord. 

Now  therefore  kill  every  male  among  the  little  ones,  and  kill 
every  woman  that  hath  known  man  by  lying  with  him. 

But  all  the  women  children  that  have  not  known  a  man  by  lying 
with  him,  keep  alive  for  yourselves. 

Moses  is  a  patriarch  of  the  Jews,  and  the  meekest  man. 
But  suppose  any  pagan  or  Mohammedan  general  were  to 
behave  to  a  Qiristian  city  as  Moses  behaved  to  the  peo- 
ple of  Midian,  what  should  we  say  of  him?  But  God 
was  pleased  with  him. 


THE  HEROES  OF  THE  BIBLE  83 

Further,  in  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  Numbers  you  will 
find  how  Moses  the  Meek  treated  Korah,  Dathan,  and 
Abiram  for  rebelHng  against  himself  and  Aaron;  how 
the  earth  opened  and  swallowed  these  men  and  their 
families  and  friends,  at  a  hint  from  Moses ;  and  how 
the  I-ord  slew  with  fire  from  heaven  two  hundred  and 
fifty  men  who  were  offering  incense,  and  how  afterwards 
there  came  a  pestilence  by  which  some  fourteen  thousand 
persons  died. 

Moses  was  a  politician;  his  brother  was  a  priest.  I 
shall  express  no  opinion  of  the  pair ;  but  I  quote  from  the 
Book  of  Exodus,  as  follows : 

And  when  the  people  saw  that  Moses  delayed  to  come  down 
out  of  the  mount,  the  people  gathered  themselves  together  unto 
Aaron,  and  said  unto  him,  Up,  make  us  gods,  which  shall  go  be- 
fore us;  for  as  for  this  Moses,  the  man  that  brought  us  up  out 
of  the  land  of  Egypt,  we  wot  not  what  is  become  of  him. 

And  Aaron  said  unto  them.  Break  off  the  golden  earrings, 
which  are  in  the  ears  of  your  wives,  of  your  sons,  and  of  your 
daughters,  and  bring  them  unto  me. 

And  all  the  people  brake  off  the  golden  earrings  which  were 
in  their  ears,  and  brought  them  unto  Aaron. 

And  he  received  them  at  their  hand,  and  fashioned  it  with 
a  graving  tool,  after  he  had  made  it  a  molten  calf:  and  they 
said.  These  be  thy  gods,  O  Israel,  which  brought  thee  up  out  of 
the  land  of  Egypt. 

And  when  Aaron  saw  it,  he  built  an  altar  before  it ;  and  Aaron 
made  proclamation,  and  said,  To-morrow  is  a  feast  to  the  Lord. 

And  they  rose  up  early  on  the  morrow,  and  offered  burnt  of- 
ferings, and  brought  peace  offerings ;  and  the  people  sat  down 
to  eat  and  to  drink,  and  rose  up  to  play. 

And  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses,  Go,  get  thee  down;  for  thy 
people  which  thou  broughtest  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  have 
corrupted  themselves. 

Aaron,  when  asked  by  Moses  why  he  has  done  this 
thing,  tells  a  lie: 

And  Moses  said  unto  Aaron,  What  did  this  people  unto  thee, 
that  thou  hast  brought  so  great  a  sin  upon  them? 

And  Aaron  said.  Let  not  the  anger  of  my  lord  wax  hot ;  thou 
knowest  'the  people,  that  they  are  set  on  mischief. 

For  they  said  unto  me,  Make  us  gods,  which  shall  go  before 


84  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

us :  for  as  for  this  Moses,  the  man  that  brought  us  up  out  of  the 
land  of  Egypt,  we  wot  not  what  is  become  of  him. 

And  I  said  unto  them,  Whosoever  hath  any  gold,  let  them 
break  it  off.  So  they  gave  it  to  me:  then  I  cast  it  into  the  fire, 
and  there  came  out  this  calf. 

And  when  Moses  saw  that  the  people  were  naked;  (for  Aaron 
had  made  them  naked  unto  their  shame  among  their  enemies:) 

Then  Moses  stood  in  the  gate  of  the  camp,  and  said,  Who  is  on 
the  Lord's  side  ?  let  him  come  unto  me.  And  all  the  sons  of  Levi 
gathered  themselves  together  unto  him. 

And  he  said  unto  them,  Thus  saith  the  Lord  God  of  Israel, 
Put  every  man  his  sword  by  his  side,  and  go  in  and  out  from 
gate  to  gate  throughout  the  camp,  and  slay  every  man  his  brother, 
and  every  man  his  companion,  and  every  man  his  neighbor. 

And  the  children  of  Levi  did  according  to  the  word  of  Moses ; 
and  there  fell  of  the  people  that  day  about  three  thousand  men. 

So  much  for  this  meek  father  of  the  Jews. 

And  now  let  us  consider  David  and  his  son  Solomon, 
the  greatest  of  the  Bible  kings,  and  the  ancestors  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

Judging  King  David  by  the  Bible  record,  I  should  con- 
clude that  he  was  a  cruel,  treacherous,  and  licentious 
savage.  He  lived  for  some  time  as  a  bandit,  robbing  the 
subjects  of  the  King  of  Gath,  who  had  given  him  shel- 
ter. When  asked  about  this  by  the  king,  David  lied.  As 
to  the  nature  of  his  conduct  at  this  time,  no  room  is  left 
for  doubt  by  the  story  of  Nabal.  David  demanded  black- 
mail of  Nabal,  and,  on  its  being  refused,  set  out  with 
four  hundred  armed  men  to  rob  Nabal,  and  kill  every 
male  on  his  estate.  This  he  was  prevented  from  doing 
by  Nabal's  wife,  who  came  out  to  meet  David  with  fine 
presents  and  fine  words.  Ten  days  later  Nabal  died,  and 
David  married  his  widow.  See  twenty-fifth  chapter 
First  Book  of  Samuel. 

David  had  seven  wives,  and  many  children.  One  of  his 
favorite  wives  was  Bathsheba,  the  widow  of  Uriah. 

While  Uriah  was  at  "the  front,"  fighting  for  David, 
that  king  seduced  his  wife,  Bathsheba.  To  avoid  dis- 
covery, David  recalled  Uriah  from  the  war,  and  bade 


THE  HEROES  OF  THE  BIBLE  85 

him  go  home  to  his  wife.  Uriah  said  it  would  dishonor 
him  to  seek  ease  and  pleasure  at  home  while  other  sol- 
diers were  enduring  hardship  at  the  front.  The  king 
then  made  the  soldier  drunk,  but  even  so  could  not  pre- 
vail. 

Therefore  David  sent  word  to  the  general  to  place 
Uriah  in  the  front  of  the  battle,  where  the  fight  was  hard- 
est. And  Uriah  was  killed,  and  David  married  Bath- 
sheba,  who  became  the  mother  of  Solomon. 

So  much  for  David's  honor.  Now  for  a  sample  of  his 
humanity.  I  quote  from  the  twelfth  chapter  of  the  Sec- 
ond Book  of  Samuel: 

And  Joab  sent  messengers  to  David,  and  said,  I  have  fought 
against  Rabbah,  and  have  taken  the  city  of  waters. 

Now  therefore  gather  the  rest  of  the  people  together,  and  en- 
camp against  the  city,  and  take  it:  lest  I  take  the  city,  and  it  be 
called  after  my  name. 

And  David  gathered  all  the  people  together,  and  went  to  Rab- 
bah, and  fought  against  it,  and  took  it. 

And  he  took  their  king's  crown  from  off  his  head,  the  weight 
whereof  was  a  talent  of  gold  with  the  precious  stones:  and  it 
was  set  on  David's  head.  And  he  brought  forth  the  spoil  of 
the  city  in  great  abundance. 

And  he  brought  forth  the  people  that  were  therein,  and  put 
them  under  saws,  and  under  harrows  of  iron,  and  under  axes 
of  iron,  and  made  them  pass  through  the  brick-kiln:  and  thus 
did  he  unto  all  the  cities  of  the  children  of  Ammon.  So  David 
and  all  the  people  returned  unto  Jerusalem. 

But  nothing  in  David's  life  became  him  so  little  as  his 
leaving  of  it.  I  quote  from  the  second  chapter  of  the 
First  Book  of  Kings.  David,  on  his  deathbed,  is  speak- 
ing to  Solomon,  his  son : 

Moreover  thou  knowest  also  what  Joab  the  son  of  Zeruiah 
did  to  me,  and  what  he  did  to  the  two  captains  of  the  hosts 
of  Israel,  unto  Abner  the  son  of  Ner,  and  unto  Amasa  the  son 
of  Jether,  whom  he  slew,  and  shed  the  blood  of  war  in  peace, 
and  put  the  blood  of  war  upon  his  girdle  that  was  about  his 
loins,  and  in  his  shoes  that  were  on  his  feet. 

Do  therefore  according  to  thy  wisdom,  and  let  not  his  hoa* 
head  go  down  to  the  grave  in  peace. 


S6  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

But  show  kindness  unto  the  sons  of  Barzillai,  the  Gileadite,  and 
let  them  be  of  those  that  eat  at  thy  table:  for  so  they  came  to 
me  when  I  fled  because  of  Absalom  thy  brother. 

And,  behold,  thou  hast  with  thee  Shimei  the  son  of  Gera,  a 
Benjamite  of  Bahurim,  which  cursed  me  with  a  grievous  curse 
in  the  day  when  I  went  to  Mahanaim;  but  he  came  down  to 
meet  me  at  Jordan,  and  I  sware  to  him  by  the  Lord,  saying,  I 
will  not  put  thee  to  death  with  the  sword. 

Now  therefore  hold  him  not  guiltless:  for  thou  art  a  wise 
man,  and  knowest  what  thou  oughtest  to  do  unto  him;  but  his 
hoar  head  bring  thou  down  to  the  grave  with  blood. 

These  seem  to  have  been  the  last  words  spoken  by 
King  David.  Joab  v^as  his  best  general,  and  had  many 
times  saved  David's  throne. 

Solomon  began  by  stealing  the  throne  from  his  brother, 
the  true  heir.  Then  he  murders  the  brother  he  has 
robbed,  and  disgraces  and  exiles  a  priest,  who  had  been 
long  a  faithful  friend  to  David,  his  father.  Later,  he 
murders  Joab  at  the  altar,  and  brings  down  the  hoar  head 
of  Shimei  to  the  grave  with  blood. 

After  which  he  gets  him  much  wisdom,  builds  a  tem- 
ple, and  marries  many  vnves. 

Much  glamor  has  been  cast  upon  the  names  of  Solo- 
mon and  David  by  their  alleged  writings.  But  it  is  now 
acknowledged  that  David  wrote  few,  if  any,  of  the 
Psalms,  and  that  Solomon  wrote  neither  Ecclesiastes  nor 
the  Song  of  Songs,  though  some  of  the  Proverbs  may 
be  his. 

It  seems  strange  to  me  that  such  men  as  Moses, 
David,  and  Solomon  should  be  glorified  by  Christian  men 
and  women  who  execrate  Henry  VIII.  and  Richard  III. 
as  monsters. 

My  pet  aversion  amongst  the  Bible  heroes  is  Jacob ;  but 
Abraham  and  Lot  were  pitiful  creatures. 

Jacob  cheated  his  brother  out  of  the  parental  blessing, 
and  lied  about  God,  and  lied  to  his  father  to  accomplish 


THE  HEROES  OF  THE  BIBLE  87 

his  end.  He  robbed  his  brother  of  his  birthright  by 
trading  on  his  necessity.  He  fled  from  his  brother's 
wrath,  and  went  to  his  uncle  Laban.  Here  he  cheated 
his  uncle  out  of  his  cattle  and  his  wealth,  and  at  last  came 
away  with  his  two  cousins  as  his  wives,  one  of  whom  had 
stolen  her  own  father's  gods. 

Abraham  was  the  father  of  Ishmael  by  the  servant- 
maid  Hagar.  At  his  wife's  demand  he  allowed  Hagar 
and  Ishmael  to  be  driven  into  the  desert  to  die.  And 
here  is  another  pretty  story  of  Abraham.  He  and  his 
family  are  driven  forth  by  a  famine: 

And  it  came  to  pass,  when  he  was  come  near  to  enter  into 
Egypt,  that  he  said  unto  Sarai  his  wife,  Behold  now,  I  know 
that  thou  art  a  fair  woman  to  look  upon : 

Therefore  it  shall  come  to  pass,  when  the  Egyptians  shall  see 
thee,  that  they  shall  say,  This  is  his  wife:  and  they  will  kill  me, 
but  they  will  save  thee  alive. 

Say,  I  pray  thee,  thou  art  my  sister:  that  it  may  be  well  with 
me  for  thy  sake ;  and  my  soul  shall  live  because  of  thee. 

And  it  came  to  pass,  that,  when  Abram  was  come  into  Egypt, 
the  Egyptians  beheld  the  woman  that  she  was  very  fair. 

The  princes  also  of  Pharaoh  saw  her,  and  commended  her  be- 
fore Pharaoh:  and  the  woman  was  taken  into  Pharaoh's  house. 

And  he  entreated  Abram  well  for  her  sake :  and  he  had  sheep, 
and  oxen,  and  he  asses,  and  menservants,  and  maidservants,  and 
she  asses,  and  camels. 

And  the  Lord  plagued  Pharaoh  and  his  house  with  great 
plagues  because  of  Sarai,  Abram's  wife. 

And  Pharaoh  called  Abram,  and  said.  What  is  this  that  thou 
hast  done  unto  me?  why  didst  thou  not  tell  me  that  she  was  thy 
wife? 

Why  saidst  thou,  She  is  my  sister?  so  I  rnight  have  taken  her 
to  me  to  wife :  now  therefore  behold  thy  wife,  take  her,  and  go 
thy  way. 

And  Pharaoh  commanded  his  men  concerning  him:  and  they 
sent  him  away,  and  his  wife,  and  all  that  he  had. 

But  Abraham  was  so  little  ashamed  of  himself  that  he 
did  the  same  thing  again,  many  years  afterwards,  and 
Abimelech,  King  of  Gerar,  behaved  to  him  as  nobly  as 
did  King  Pharaoh  on  the  former  occasion. 


88  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

The  story  of  Lot  is  too  disgusting  to  repeat.  But 
what  are  we  to  think  of  his  offering  his  daughters  to  the 
mob,  and  of  his  subsequent  conduct? 

And  what  of  Noah,  who  got  drunk,  and  then  cursesd 
the  whole  of  his  sons'  descendants  forever,  because  Ham 
had  seen  him  in  his  shame? 

Joseph  seems  to  me  to  have  been  anything  but  an 
admirable  character,  and  I  do  not  see  how  his  baseness 
in  depriving  the  Egyptians  of  their  liberties  and  their 
land  by  a  corner  in  wheat  can  be  condoned.  Jacob 
robbed  his  brother  of  his  birthright  by  trading  on  his 
hunger;  Joseph  robbed  a  whole  people  in  the  same  way. 

Samson  was  a  dissolute  ruffian  and  murderer,  who  in 
these  days  would  be  hanged  as  a  brigand. 

Reuben  committed  incest.  Simeon  and  Levi  were 
guilty  of  treachery  and  massacre.  Judah  was  guilty  of 
immorality  and  hypocrisy. 

Joshua  was  a  Jewish  general  of  the  usual  type.  When 
he  captured  a  city  he  murdered  every  man,  woman,  and 
child  within  its  walls.  Here  is  one  example  from  the 
tenth  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Joshua: 

And  Joshua  returned,  and  all  Israel  with  him,  to  Debir;  and 
fought  against  it: 

And  he  took  it,  and  the  king  thereof,  and  all  the  cities  thereof ; 
and  they  smote  them  with  the  edge  of  the  sword,  and  utterly- 
destroyed  all  the  souls  that  were  therein;  he  left  none  remain- 
ing: as  he  had  done  to  Hebron,  so  he  did  to  Debir,  and  to  the 
king  thereof;  as  he  had  done  also  to  Libnah,  and  to  her  king. 

So  Joshua  smote  all  the  country  of  the  hills,  and  of  the  south, 
and  of  the  vale,  and  of  the  springs,  and  all  their  kings:  he  left 
none  remaining,  but  utterly  destroyed  all  that  breathed,  as  the 
Lord  God  of  Israel  commanded. 

And  Joshua  smote  them  from  Kadesh-barnea  even  unto  Gaza, 
and  all  the  country  of  Goshen,  even  unto  Gibeon. 

Elijah  the  prophet  was  of  the  same  uncompromising 
kind.  After  he  had  mocked  the  god  Baal,  and  had  tri- 
umphed over  him  by  a  miracle,  he  said  to  the  Israelites : 


THE  HEROES  OF  THE  BIBLE  89 

"Take  the  prophets  of  Baal.  Let  not  one  of  them  escape." 
And  they  took  them,  and  Elijah  brought  them  down  to  the  brook 
Kishon,  and  slew  them  there. 

Now,  there  were  450  of  the  priests  of  Baal,  all  of 
whom  Elijah  the  prophet  had  killed  in  cold  blood. 

And  here  is  a  story  about  Elisha,  another  great  prophet 
of  the  Jews.  I  quote  from  the  second  chapter  of  the 
Second  Book  of  Kings : 

And  he  went  up  from  thence  unto  Bethel :  and  as  he  was  go- 
ing up  by  the  way,  there  came  forth  little  children  out  of  the 
city,  and  mocked  him,  and  said  unto  him,  Go  up,  thou  bald  head ; 
go  up,  thou  bald  head. 

And  he  turned  back,  and  looked  on  them,  and  cursed  them  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord.  And  there  came  forth  two  she  bears  out 
of  the  wood,  and  tare  forty  and  two  children  of  them. 

After  this,  Elisha  assists  King  Jehoram  and  two  other 
kings  to  waste  and  slaughter  the  Moabites,  who  had  re- 
fused to  pay  tribute.  You  may  read  the  horrible  story 
for  yourselves  in  the  third  chapter  of  the  Second  Book  of 
Kings.  There  was  the  usual  massacre,  but  this  time  the 
trees  were  cut  down  and  the  wells  choked  up. 

Later,  Elisha  cures  a  man  of  leprosy,  and  refuses  a 
reward.  But  his  servant  runs  after  the  man,  and  gets 
two  talents  of  silver  and  some  garments  under  false  pre- 
tenses. When  Elisha  hears  of  this  crime,  he  strikes  the 
servant  with  leprosy,  and  all  his  seed  forever. 

Now,  it  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  harp  upon  the  con- 
duct of  these  men  of  God :  what  I  want  to  point  out  is 
that  these  cruel  and  ignorant  savages  have  been  saddled 
upon  the  Christian  religion  as  heroes  and  as  models. 

Even  to-day  the  man  who  called  David,  or  Moses,  or 
Elisha  by  his  proper  name  in  an  average  Christian  house- 
hold would  be  regarded  as  a  wicked  blasphemer. 

And  yet,  what  would  a  Christian  congregation  say  of 
an  "  Infidel  "  who  committed  half  the  crimes  and  out- 
rages of  any  one  of  those  Bible  heroes? 


90  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

Do  you  know  what  the  Christians  called  Tom  Paine? 
To  this  day  the  respectable  Christian  church-  or  chapel- 
goer  shudders  at  the  name  of  the  "  infidel,"  Tom  Paine. 
But  in  point  of  honor,  of  virtue,  of  humanity,  and  gen- 
eral good  character,  not  one  of  the  Bible  heroes  I  have 
mentioned  was  worthy  to  clean  Tom  Paine's  shoes. 

Now,  it  states  in  the  Bible  that  God  loved  Jacob,  and 
hated  Esau. 

Esau  was  a  man,  and  against  him  the  Bible  does  not 
chronicle  one  bad  act.     But  God  hated  Esau. 

And  it  states  in  the  Bible  that  Elijah  went  up  in  a 
chariot  of  fire  to  heaven. 

And  in  the  New  Testament  Christ  or  His  apostles 
speak  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  as  being  in  heaven. 
Paul  speaks  of  David  as  a  "  man  after  God's  own  heart " ; 
Elijah  and  Moses  come  down  from  heaven,  and  appear 
talking  with  Christ ;  and,  in  Hebrews,  Paul  praises  Sam- 
uel, Jephtha,  Samson,  and  David. 

My  point  is  not  that  these  heroes  were  bad  men,  but 
that,  in  a  book  alleged  to  be  the  word  of  God,  they  are 
treated  as  heroes. 

I  have  been  accused  of  showing  irreverence  towards 
these  barbarous  kings  and  priests.  Irreverence!  It  is 
like  charging  a  historian  with  disrespect  to  the  memory 
of  Nero. 

I  have  been  accused  of  having  an  animus  against 
Moses,  and  David,  and  all  the  rest.  I  have  no  animus 
against  any  man,  nor  do  I  presume  to  censure  my  fellow 
creatures.  I  only  wish  to  show  that  these  favorites  of 
God  were  not  admirable  characters,  and  that  therefore 
the  Bible  cannot  be  a  divine  revelation.  As  for  animus : 
I  do  not  believe  any  of  these  men  ever  existed.  I  regard 
them  as  myths.     Should  one  be  angry  with  a  myth?     I 


THE  HEROES  OF  THE  BIBLE  91 

should  as  soon  think  of  being  angry  with  Bluebeard,  or 
the  Giant  that  Jack  slew. 

But  I  should  be  astonished  to  hear  that  Bluebeard 
had  been  promoted  to  the  position  of  a  holy  patriarch, 
and  a  model  of  all  the  virtues  for  the  emulation  of  inno- 
cent children  in  a  modern  Sunday  school.  And  I  think 
it  is  time  the  Church  considered  itself,  and  told  the  truth 
about  Jehovah,  and  Moses,  and  Joshua,  and  Samson. 

If  you  fail  to  agree  with  me  I  can  only  accept  your 
decision  with  respectful  astonishment. 


THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS 

Floods  of  sincere,  but  unmerited,  adulation  have  been 
lavished  on  the  Hebrew  Bible.  The  world  has  many 
books  of  higher  moral  and  literary  value.  It  would  be 
easy  to  compile,  from  the  words  of  Heretics  and  Infidels, 
a  purer  and  more  elevated  moral  guide  than  this  "  Book 
of  Books." 

The  ethical  code  of  the  Old  Testament  is  no  longer 
suitable  as  the  rule  of  life.  The  moral  and  intellectual 
advance  of  the  human  race  has  left  it  behind. 

The  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament  are  largely 
pernicious,  and  often  obscene.  These  books  describe, 
without  disapproval,  polygamy,  slavery,  concubinage, 
lying  and  deceit,  treachery,  incest,  murder,  wars  of  plun- 
der, wars  of  conquest,  massacre  of  prisoners  of  war,  mas- 
sacre of  women  and  of  children,  cruelty  to  animals ;  and 
such  immoral,  dishonest,  shameful,  or  dastardly  deeds  as 
those  of  Solomon,  David,  Abraham,  Jacob,  and  Lot. 

The  ethical  code  of  the  Old  Testament  does  not  teach 
the  sacredness  of  truth,  does  not  teach  religious  tolerance, 
nor  humanity,  nor  human  brotherhood,  nor  peace. 

Its  morality  is  crude.  Much  that  is  noblest  in  modern 
thought  has  no  place  in  the  "  Book  of  Books."  For  ex- 
ample, take  these  words  of  Herbert  Spencer's : 

Absolute  morality  is  the  regulation  of  conduct  in  such  way  that 
pain  shall  not  be  inflicted. 

There  is  nothing  so  comprehensive,  nothing  so  deep 
as  that  in  the  Bible.  That  covers  all  the  moralities  of 
the  Ten  Commandments,  and  all  the  Ethics  of  the  Law 

92 


THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS  93 

and  the  Prophets,  in  one  short  sentence,  and  leaves  a 
handsome  surplus  over. 
Note  next  this,  from  Kant ; 

What  are  the  aims  which  are  at  the  same  time  duties?  They 
are-the  perfecting  of  ourselves,  and  the  happiness  of  others. 

I  do  not  know  a  Bible  sentence  so  purely  moral  as  that. 
And  in  what  part  of  the  Bible  shall  we  find  a  parallel  to 
the  following  sentence,  from  an  Agnostic  newspaper: 

Freedom  of  thought,  freedom  of  speech,  freedom  of  action 
are  helps  to  the  children  of  men  in  their  search  for  wisdom. 

Tom  Paine  left  Moses  and  Isaiah  centuries  behind 
when  he  wrote : 

The  world  is  my  country:  to  do  good  my  religion. 

Robert  Ingersoll,  another  "  Infidel,"  surpassed  Solo- 
mon when  he  said: 

The  object  of  life  is  to  be  happy,  the  place  to  be  happy  is  here, 
the  time  to  be  happy  is  now,  the  way  to  be  happy  is  by  making 
others  happy. 

Which  simple  sentence  contains  more  wisdom  than  all 
the  pessimism  of  the  King  of  kings.  And  again,  Inger- 
soll went  beyond  the  sociological  conception  of  the 
Prophets  when  he  wrote : 

And  let  us  do  away  for  ever  with  the  idea  that  the  care  of  the 
sick,  of  the  helpless,  is  a  charity.  It  is  not  a  charity:  it  is  a 
duty.  It  is  something  to  be  done  for  our  own  sakes.  It  is  no 
more  a  charity  than  it  is  to  pave  or  light  the  streets,  no  more  a 
charity  than  it  is  to  have  a  system  of  sewers.  It  is  all  for  the 
purpose  of  protecting  society,  and  civilizing  ourselves. 

I  will  now  put  together  a  few  sayings  of  Pagans  and 
Unbelievers  as  an  example  of  non-biblical  morality: 

Truth  is  the  pole-star  of  morality,  by  it  alone  can  we 
steer.  Can  there  be  a  more  horrible  object  in  existence 
than  an  eloquent  man  not  speaking  the  truth  ?    Abhor 


94  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

Dissimulation.  To  know  the  truth  and  fear  to  speak 
it :  that  is  cowardice.  One  thing  here  is  worth  a  good 
deal,  to  pass  thy  Hfe  in  truth  and  justice,  with  a  be- 
nevolent disposition,  even  to  liars  and  unjust  men. 

He  who  acts  unjustly  acts  unjustly  to  himself,  for 
he  makes  himself  bad.  The  practice  of  religion  in- 
volves as  a  first  principle  a  loving  compassionate  heart 
for  all  creatures.  Religion  means  self-sacrifice.  A 
loving  heart  is  the  great  requirement:  not  to  oppress, 
not  to  destroy,  not  to  exalt  oneself  by  treading  down 
others ;  but  to  comfort  and  befriend  those  in  suffering. 
Like  as  a  mother  at  tb-e  risk  of  her  life  watches  over 
her  only  child,  so  also  let  every  one  cultivate  towards 
all  beings  a  bounteous  friendly  mind. 

Man's  great  business  is  to  improve  his  mind.  What 
is  it  to  you  whether  another  is  guilty  or  guiltless? 
Come,  friend,  atone  for  your  own  fault. 

Virtue  consists  in  contempt  for  death.  Why  should 
we  cling  to  this  perishable  body?  In  the  eye  of  the 
wise  the  only  thing  it  is  good  for  is  to  benefit  one's 
fellow  creatures. 

Treat  others  as  you  wish  them  to  treat  you.  Do  not 
return  evil  for  evil.  Our  deeds,  whether  good  or  evil, 
follow  us  like  shadows. 

Never  will  man  attain  full  moral  stature  until  woman 
is  free.  Cherish  and  reverence  little  children.  Let  the 
slave  cease,  and  the  master  of  slaves  cease. 

To  conquer  your  enemy  by  force  increases  his  re- 
sentment. Conquer  him  by  love  and  you  will  have  no 
aftergrief.     Victory  breeds  hatred. 

I  look  for  no  recompense  —  not  even  to  be  born  in 
heaven  —  but  seek  the  benefit  of  men,  to  bring  back 
those  who  have  gone  astray,  to  enlighten  those  living 


THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS  95 

in  dismal  error,  to  put  away  all  sources  of  sorrow  and 

pain  in  the  world. 

I  cannot  have  pleasure  while  another  grieves  and  I 

have  power  to  help  him. 

■Those  who  regard  the  Bible  as  the  "  Book  of  Books," 
and  believe  it  to  be  invaluable  and  indispensable  to  the 
world,  must  have  allowed  their  early  associations  or  re- 
ligious sentiment  to  mislead  them.  Carlyle  is  more  moral 
than  Jeremiah;  Ruskin  is  superior  to  Isaiah;  Ingersoll, 
the  Atheist,  is  a  nobler  moralist  and  a  better  man  than 
Moses ;  Plato  and  Marco  Aurelius  are  wiser  than  Solo- 
mon; Sir  Thomas  More,  Herbert  Spencer,  Thoreau, 
Matthew  Arnold,  and  Emerson  are  worth  more  to  us 
than  all  the  Prophets. 

I  hold  a  high  opinion  of  the  literary  quality  of  some 
parts  of  the  Old  Testament;  but  I  seriously  think  that 
the  loss  of  the  first  fourteen  books  would  be  a  distinct 
gain  to  the  world.  For  the  rest,  there  is  considerable 
literary  and  some  ethical  value  in  Job  (which  is  not 
Jewish),  in  Ecclesiastes  (which  is  Pagan),  in  the  Song 
of  Solomon  (which  is  an  erotic  love  song),  and  in  parts 
of  Isaiah,  Proverbs,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  and  Amos.  But 
I  don't  think  any  of  these  books  equal  to  Henry  George's 
Progress  and  Poverty,  or  William  Morris'  News  from 
Nowhere,  Of  course,  I  am  not  blaming  Moses  and  the 
Prophets:  they  could  only  tell  us  what  they  knew. 

The  Ten  Commandments  have  been  effusively  praised. 
There  is  nothing  in  those  Commandments  to  restrain  the 
sweater,  the  rack-renter,  the  jerry-builder,  the  slum  land- 
lord, the  usurer,  the  liar,  the  libertine,  the  gambler,  the 
drunkard,  the  wife-beater,  the  slave-owner,  the  religious 
persecutor,  the  maker  of  wheat  and  cotton  rings,  the  fox- 
hunter,  the  bird-slayer,  the  ill-user  of  horses  and  dogs 


96  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

and  cattle.  There  is  nothing  about  *'  cultivating  towards 
all  beings  a  bounteous  friendly  mind,"  nothing  about  lib- 
erty of  speech  and  conscience,  nothing  about  the  wrong 
of  causing  pain,  nor  the  virtue  of  causing  happiness; 
nothing  against  anger  or  revenge,  nor  in  favor  of  mercy 
and  forgiveness.  Of  the  Ten  Commandments,  seven  are 
designed  as  defenses  of  the  possessions  and  prerogatives 
of  God  and  the  property-owner.  As  a  moral  code  the 
Commandments  amount  to  very  little. 

Moreover,  the  Bible  teaches  erroneous  theories  of  his- 
tory, theology,  and  science. 

It  relates   childish   stories  of   impossible  miracles  as 
facts. 
It  presents  a  low  idea  of  God. 

It  gives  an  erroneous  account  of  the  relations  between 
God  and  man. 

It  fosters  international  hatred. 
It  fosters  religious  pride  and  fanaticism. 
Its  penal  code  is  horrible. 

Its  texts  have  been  used  for  nearly  two  thousand  years 
in  defense  of  war,  slavery,  religious  persecution,  and  the 
slaughter  of  "  witches  "  and  of  "  sorcerers." 

In  a  hundred  wars  the  Christian  soldiery  have  per- 
petrated massacre  and  outrage  with  the  blood-bolstered 
phrases  of  the  Bible  on  their  lips. 

In  a  thousand  trials  the  cruel  witness  of  Moses  has  sent 
innocent  women  to  a  painful  death. 

And  always  when  an  apology  or  a  defense  of  the  bar- 
barities of  human  slavery  was  needed  it  was  sought  for 
and  found  in  the  Holy  Bible. 
Renan  says: 

In  all  ancient  Christian  literature  there  is  not  one  word  that 
tells  the  slave  to  revolt,  or  that  tells  the  master  to  liberate  the 
slave,  or  even  that  touches  the  problem  of  public  right  which 
arises  out  of  slavery. 


THE  BOOK  OF  BOOKS  97 

Mr.  Remsburg,  in  his  book,  The  Bible,  shows  that  in 
America  slavery  was  defended  by  the  churches  on  the 
authority  of  the  sacred  Scriptures.     He  says: 

The  Fugitive  Slave  law,  which  made  us  a  nation  of  kidnapers, 
derived  its  authority  from  the  New  Testament.  Paul  had  es- 
tablished a  precedent  by  returning  a  fugitive  slave  t6  his  master. 

Mr.  Remsburg  quotes  freely  from  the  sermons  and 
speeches  of  Christian  ministers  to  show  the  influence  of 
the  Bible  in  upholding  slavery.  Here  are  some  of  his 
many  examples : 

The  Rev.  Alexander  Campbell  wrote :  "  There  is  not  one  verse 
in  the  Bible  inhibiting  slavery,  but  many  regulating  it.  It  is  not, 
then,  we  conclude,  immoral." 

Said  the  Rev.  Mr.  Crawder,  Methodist,  of  Virginia :  "  Slavery  is 
not  only  countenanced,  permitted,  and  regulated  by  the  Bible, 
but  it  was  positively  instituted  by  God  Himself." 

I  shall  quote  no  more  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  That 
inhuman  institution  was  defended  by  the  churches,  and 
the  appeal  of  the  churches  was  to  the  Bible. 

As  to  witchcraft,  the  Rev.  T.  Rhondda  Williams  says 
that  in  one  century  a  hundred  thousand  women  were 
killed  for  witchcraft  in  Germany.  Mr.  Remsburg  offers 
still  more  terrible  evidence ;  he  says : 

One  thousand  were  burned  at  Como  in  one  year;  eight  hun- 
dred were  burned  at  Wurzburg  in  one  year ;  five  hundred  perished 
at  Geneva  in  three  months;  eighty  were  burned  in  a  single 
village  of  Savoy ;  nine  women  v/ere  burned  in  a  single  fire  at 
Leith;  sixty  were  hanged  in  Suffolk;  three  thousand  were  legally 
executed  during  one  session  of  Parliament,  while  thousands  more 
were  put  to  death  by  mobs;  Remy,  a  Christian  judge,  executed 
eight  hundred ;  six  hundred  were  burned  by  one  bishop  at  Bam- 
burg ;  Bogult  burned  six  hundred  at  St.  Cloud ;  thousands  were 
put  to  death  by  the  Lutherans  of  Norway  and  Sweden ;  Catholic 
Spain  butchered  thousands;  Presbyterians  were  responsible  for 
the  death  of  four  thousand  in  Scotland;  fifty  thousand  were 
sentenced  to  death  during  the  reign  of  Francis  I ;  seven  thou- 
sand died  at  Treves ;  the  number  killed  in  Paris  in  a  few  months 
is  declared  to  have  been  "  almost  infinite."  Dr.  Sprenger  places 
to  total  number  of  executions  for  witchcraft  in  Europe  at 
nine  millions.    For  centuries,  witch  fires  burned  in  nearly  every 


98  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

town  of  Europe,  and  this  Bible  text,  "Thou  shalt  not  iuffer  a 
witch  to  live,"  was  the  torch  that  kindled  them. 

Count  up  the  terrible  losses  in  the  many  religious  wars 
of  the  world,  add  in  the  massacres,  the  martyrdoms,  the 
tortures  for  religion's  sake ;  put  to  the  sum  the  long  tale 
of  witchcraft  murders ;  remember  what  slavery  has  been ; 
and  then  ask  yourselves  whether  the  Book  of  Books  de- 
serves all  the  eulogy  that  has  been  laid  upon  it. 

I  believe  that  to-day  all  manner  of  evil  passions  are 
fostered,  and  all  the  finer  motions  of  the  human  spirit  are 
retarded,  by  the  habit  of  reading  those  savage  old  books 
of  the  Jews  as  the  word  of  God. 

I  do  not  think  the  Bible,  in  its  present  form,  is  a  fit 
book  to  place  in  the  hands  of  children,  and  it  certainly  is 
not  a  fit  book  to  send  out  for  the  "  salvation  "  of  savage 
and  ignorant  people. 


OUR  HEAVENLY  FATHER 

The  Rev.  T.  Rhondda  Williams,  in  Shall  We  Understand 
the  Bible,  shows  very  clearly  the  gradual  evolution  of  the 
idea  of  God  amongst  the  Jews  from  a  lower  to  a  higher 
conception. 

Having  dealt  with  the  lower  conception;  let  us  now 
consider  the  higher. 

The  highest  conception  of  God  is  supposed  to  be  the 
Christian  conception  of  God  as  a  Heavenly  Father.  This 
conception  credits  the  Supreme  Being  with  supernal  ten- 
derness and  mercy  — "  God  is  Love."  That  is  a  very 
lofty,  poetical,  and  gratifying  conception,  but  it  is  open  to 
one  fatal  objection  —  it  is  not  true. 

For  this  Heavenly  Father,  whose  nature  is  Love,  is 
also  the  All-knowing  and  All-powerful  Creator  of  the 
world. 

Being  All-powerful  and  All-knowing,  He  has  power, 
and  had  always  power,  to  create  any  kind  of  world  He 
chose.  Being  a  God  of  Love,  He  would  not  choose  to 
create  a  world  in  which  hate  and  pain  should  have  a 
place. 

But  there  is  evil  in  the  world.  There  has  been  always 
evil  in  the  world.  Why  did  a  good  and  loving  God  allow 
evil  to  enter  the  world?  Being  All-powerful  and  All- 
knowing,  He  could  have  excluded  evil.  Being  good,  He 
would  hate  evil.  Being  a  God  of  Love,  He  would  wish 
to  exclude  evil.     Why,  then,  did  He  permit  evil  to  enter  ? 

The  world  is  full  of  sorrow,  of  pain,  of  hatred  and 
crime,  and  strife  and  war.     All  life  is  a  perpetual  deadly 

99 


100  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

struggle  for  existence.  The  law  of  nature  is  the  law  of 
prey. 

If  God  is  a  tender,  loving,  All-knowing  and  All-power- 
ful Heavenly  Father,  why  did  he  build  a  world  on  cruel 
lines?  Why  does  He  permit  evil  and  pain  to  continue? 
Why  does  He  not  give  the  world  peace,  and  health,  and 
happiness,  and  virtue? 

In  the  New  Testament  Christ  compares  Grod,  as  Heav- 
enly Father  to  Man,  as  an  earthly  father,  representing 
God  as  more  benevolent  and  tender :  "  How  much  more 
your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  ?  " 

We  may,  then,  on  the  authority  of  the  Founder  of 
Christianity,  compare  the  Christian  Heavenly  Father  with 
the  human  father.  And  in  doing  so  we  shall  find  that 
Christ  was  not  justified  in  claiming  that  God  is  a  better 
father  to  Man  than  Man  is  to  his  own  children.  We 
shall  find  that  the  poetical  and  pleasing  theory  of  a 
Heavenly  Father  and  God  of  Love  is  a  delusion. 

"  Who  among  you,  if  his  child  asks  bread,  will  give  him 
a  stone  ?  "  None  amongst  us.  But  in  the  great  famines, 
as  in  India  and  Russia,  God  allows  millions  to  die  of 
starvation.  These  His  children  pray  to  Him  for  bread. 
He  leaves  them  to  die.     Is  it  not  so? 

God  made  the  sunshine,  sweet  children,  gracious 
women ;  green  hills,  blue  seas ;  music,  laughter,  love,  hu- 
mor ;  the  palm  tree,  the  hawthorn  buds,  the  "  sweet-briar 
wind  " ;  the  nightingale  and  the  rose. 

But  God  made  the  earthquake,  the  volcano,  the  cy- 
clone; the  shark,  the  viper,  the  tiger,  the  octopus,  the 
poison  berry ;  and  the  deadly  loathsome  germs  of  cholera, 
consumption,  typhoid,  smallpox,  and  the  black  death. 
God  has  permitted  famine,  pestilence,  and  war.  He  has 
permitted  martyrdom,  witch-burning,  slavery,  massacre, 
torture,  and  human  sacrifice.     He  has   for  millions  of 


OUR  HEAVENLY  FATHER  loi 

years  looked  down  upon  the  ignorance,  the  misery,  the 
crimes  of  men.  He  has  been  at  once  the  author  and  the 
audience  of  the  pitiful,  unspeakable,  long-drawn  and  far- 
stretched  tragedy  of  earthly  life.  Is  it  not  so  ? 
.  For  thousands  of  years  —  perhaps  for  millions  of 
years  —  the  generations  of  men  prayed  to  God  for  help, 
for  comfort,  for  guidance.  God  was  deaf,  and  dumb, 
and  blind. 

Men  of  science  strove  to  read  the  riddle  of  life;  to 
guide  and  to  succor  their  fellow  creatures.  The  priests 
and  followers  of  God  persecuted  and  slew  these  men  of 
science.     God  made  no  sign.     Is  it  not  so  ? 

To-day  men  of  science  are  trying  to  conquer  the  hor- 
rors of  cancer  and  smallpox,  and  rabies  and  consumption. 
But  not  from  Burning  Bush,  nor  Holy  Hill,  nor  by  the 
mouth  of  priest  or  prophet  does  our  Heavenly  Father 
utter  a  word  of  counsel  or  encouragement. 

Millions  of  innocent  dumb  animals  have  been  sub- 
jected to  the  horrible  tortures  of  vivisection  in  the  frantic 
endeavors  of  men  to  find  a  way  of  escape  from  the  fell 
destroyers  of  the  human  race ;  and  God  has  allowed  the 
piteous  brutes  to  suffer  anguish,  when  He  could  have 
saved  them  by  revealing  to  Man  the  secret  for  which  he 
so  cruelly  sought.     Is  it  not  so? 

"  Nature  is  red  in  beak  and  claw."  On  land  and  in 
sea  the  animal  creation  chase  and  maim,  and  slay  and 
devour  each  other.  The  beautiful  swallow  on  the  wing 
devours  the  equally  beautiful  gnat.  The  graceful  flying- 
fish,  like  a  fair  white  bird,  goes  glancing  above  the  blue 
magnificence  of  the  tropical  seas.  His  flight  is  one  of 
terror;  he  is  pursued  by  the  ravenous  dolphin.  The 
ichneumon-fly  lays  its  eggs  under  the  skin  of  the  cater- 
pillar. The  eggs  are  hatched  by  the  warmth  of  the 
caterpillar's    blood.     They    produce    a   brood    of    larvae 


102  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

which  devour  the  caterpillar  alive.  A  pretty  child  dances 
on  the  village  green.  Her  feet  crush  creeping  things; 
there  is  a  busy  ant  or  blazoned  beetle,  with  its  back 
broken,  writhing  in  the  dust,  unseen.  A  germ  flies  from 
a  stagnant  pool,  and  the  laughing  child,  its  mother's 
darling,  dies  dreadfully  of  diphtheria.  A  tidal  wave 
rolls  landward,  and  twenty  thousand  human  beings  are 
drowned,  or  crushed  to  death.  A  volcano  bursts  sud- 
denly into  eruption,  and  a  beautiful  city  is  a  heap  of 
ruins,  and  its  inhabitants  are  charred  or  mangled  corpses. 
And  the  Heavenly  Father,  who  is  Love,  has  power  to 
save,  and  makes  no  sign.     Is  it  not  so? 

Blindness,  epilepsy,  leprosy,  madness,  fall  like  a  dread- 
ful blight  upon  a  myriad  of  God's  children,  and  the 
Heavenly  Father  gives  neither  guidance  nor  consolation. 
Only  man  helps  man.  Only  man  pities;  only  man  tries 
to  save. 

Millions  of  harmless  women  have  been  burned  as 
witches.  God,  our  Heavenly  Father,  has  power  to  save 
them.     He  allows  them  to  suffer  and  die. 

God  knew  that  those  women  were  being  tortured  and 
burnt  on  a  false  charge.  He  knew  that  the  infamous 
murders  were  in  His  name.  He  knew  that  the  whole 
fabric  of  crime  was  due  to  the  human  reading  of  His 
"  revelation  "  to  man.  He  could  have  saved  the  women ; 
He  could  have  enlightened  their  persecutors ;  He  could 
have  blown  away  the  terror,  the  cruelty,  and  the  igno- 
rance of  His  priests  and  worshipers  with  a  breath. 

And  He  was  silent.  He  allowed  the  armies  of  poor 
women  to  be  tortured  and  murdered  in  His  name.  Is  it 
not  so? 

Will  you,  then,  compare  the  Heavenly  Father  with  a 
father  among  men?  Is  there  any  earthly  father  who 
would  allow  his  children  to  suffer  as  God  allows  Man  to 


OUR  HEAVENLY  FATHER  103 

suffer?  If  a  man  had  knowledge  and  power  to  prevent 
or  to  abolish  war  and  ignorance  and  hunger  and  disease ; 
if  a  man  had  the  knowledge  and  the  power  to  abolish 
human  error  and  human  suffering  and  human  wrong 
and  did  not  do  it,  we  should  call  him  an  inhuman  mon- 
ster, a  cruel  fiend.     Is  it  not  so  ? 

But  God  has  knowledge  and  power,  and  we  are  asked 
to  regard  Him  as  a  Heavenly  Father,  and  a  God  of  in- 
finite wisdom,  and  infinite  mercy,  and  infinite  love. 

The  Christians  used  to  tell  us,  and  some  still  tell  us, 
that  this  Heavenly  Father  of  infinite  love  and  mercy 
would  doom  the  creatures  He  had  made  to  Hell  —  for 
their  sins.  That,  having  created  us  imperfect,  He  would 
punish  our  imperfections  with  everlasting  torture  in  a 
lake  of  everlasting  fire.  They  used  to  tell  us  that  this 
good  God  allowed  a  Devil  to  come  on  earth  and  tempt 
man  to  his  ruin.  They  used  to  say  this  Devil  would  win 
more  souls  than  Christ  could  win:  that  there  should  be 
"  more  goats  than  sheep." 

To  escape  from  these  horrible  theories,  the  Christians 
(some  of  them)  have  thrown  over  the  doctrines  of  Hell 
and  the  Devil. 

But  without  a  Devil  how  can  we  maintain  a  belief  in  a 
God  of  love  and  kindness  ?  With  a  good  God,  and  a  bad 
God  (or  Devil),  one  might  get  along;  for  then  the  good 
might  be  ascribed  to  God,  and  the  evil  to  the  Devil. 
And  that  is  what  the  old  Persians  did  in  their  doctrine  of 
Ormuzd  and  Ahrimann.  But  with  no  Devil  the  belief 
in  a  merciful  and  loving  Heavenly  Father  becomes  im- 
possible. 

If  God  blesses,  who  curses?  If  God  saves,  who 
damns?     If  God  helps,  who  harms? 

This  belief  in  a  "  Heavenly  Father,"  like  the  belief  in 
the  perfection  of  the  Bible,  drives  its  votaries  into  weird 


104  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

and  wonderful  positions.  For  example,  a  Christian 
wrote  to  me  about  an  animal  called  the  aye-aye.  He 
said: 

There  is  a  little  animal  called  an  aye-aye.  This  animal  has 
two  hands.  Each  hand  has  five  fingers.  The  peculiar  thing 
about  these  hands  is  that  the  middle  finger  is  elongated  a  great 
deal  —  it  is  about  twice  as  long  as  the  others.  This  is  to  enable 
it  to  scoop  a  special  sort  of  insect  out  of  special  cracks  in  the 
special  trees  it  frequents.  Now,  how  did  the  finger  begin  to 
elongate?  A  little  lengthening  would  be  absolutely  no  good,  as 
the  cracks  in  the  trees  are  2  inches  or  3  inches  deep.  It  must 
have  varied  from  the  ordinary  length  to  one  twice  as  long  at 
once.  There  is  no  other  way.  Where  does  natural  selection 
come  in?  In  this,  as  in  scores  of  other  instances,  is  shown  the 
infinite  goodness  of  God." 

Now,  how  does  the  creation  of  this  long  finger  show 
the  "  infinite  goodness  of  God."  The  infinite  goodness 
of  God  to  whom?  To  the  animal  whose  special  finger 
enables  him  to  catch  the  insect?  Then  what  about  the 
insect?  Where  does  he  come  in?  Does  not  the  long 
finger  of  the  animal  show  the  infinite  badness  of  God  to 
the  insect? 

What  of  the  infinite  goodness  of  God  in  teaching  the 
cholera  microbe  to  feed  on  man?  What  of  the  infinite 
goodness  of  God  in  teaching  the  grub  of  the  ichneumon- 
fly  to  eat  up  the  cabbage  caterpillar  alive? 

I  see  no  infinite  goodness  here,  but  only  the  infinite 
foolishness  of  sentimental  superstition. 

If  a  man  fell  into  the  sea,  and  saw  a  shark  coming,  I 
cannot  fancy  him  praising  the  infinite  goodness  of  God 
in  giving  the  shark  so  large  a  mouth.  The  greyhound's 
speed  is  a  great  boon  to  the  greyhound ;  but  it  is  no  boon 
to  the  hare. 

But  this  theory  of  a  merciful  and  loving  Heavenly 
Father  is  vital  to  the  Christian  religion. 

Destroy  the  idea  of  the  Heavenly  Father,  who  is  Love, 
and  Christianity  is  a  heap  of  ruins.     For  there  is  no 


OUR  HEAVENLY  FATHER  105 

longer  a  benevolent  God  to  build  our  hopes  upon;  and 
Jesus  Christ,  whose  glory  is  a  newer  revelation  of  God, 
has  not  revealed  Him  truly,  as  He  is,  but  only  as  Man 
fain  would  believe  Him  to  be. 

.And  I  claim  that  this  Heavenly  Father  is  a  myth :  that 
in  face  of  a  knowledge  of  Hfe  and  the  world,  we  cannot 
reasonably  believe  in  Him. 

There  is  no  Heavenly  Father  watching  tenderly  over 
us,  His  children.  He  is  the  baseless  shadow  of  a  wistful 
human  dream. 


PRAYER  AND  PRAISE 

As  to  prayer  and  praise. 

Christians  believe  that  God  is  just,  that  He  is  all-wise 
and  all-knowing. 

If  God  is  just,  will  He  not  do  justice  without  being  en- 
treated of  men? 

If  God  is  all-wise,  and  knows  all  that  happens,  will  He 
not  know  what  is  for  man's  good  better  than  man  can 
tell  Him? 

If  He  knows  better  than  Man  knows  what  is  best  for 
Man,  and  if  He  is  a  just  God  and  a  loving  Father,  will 
He  not  do  right  without  any  advice  or  reminder  from 
Man? 

If  He  is  a  just  God,  will  He  give  us  less  than  justice 
unless  we  pray  to  Him ;  or  will  He  give  us  more  than 
justice  because  we  importune  Him? 

To  ask  God  for  His  love,  or  for  His  grace,  or  for  any 
worldly  benefit  seems  to  me  unreasonable. 

If  God  knows  we  need  His  grace,  or  if  He  knows  we 
need  some  help  or  benefit,  He  will  give  it  to  us  if  we 
deserve  it.  If  we  do  not  deserve  it,  or  do  not  need  what 
we  ask  for,  it  would  not  be  just  nor  wise  of  Him  to  grant 
our  prayer. 

To  pray  to  God  is  to  insult  Him.  What  would  a  man 
think  if  his  children  knelt  and  begged  for  his  love  or  for 
their  daily  bread?  He  would  think  his  children  showed 
a  very  low  conception  of  their  father's  sense  of  duty  and 
affection. 

Then  Christians  think  God  answers  prayer.  How  can 
they  think  that? 

In  the  many  massacres,  and  famines,  and  pestilences 

io6 


PRAYER  AND  PRAISE  107 

has  God  answered  prayer  ?  As  we  learn  more  and  more 
of  the  laws  of  nature  we  put  less  and  less  reliance  on  the 
effect  of  prayer. 

When  fever  broke  out,  men  used  to  run  to  the  priest; 
now  they  run  to  the  doctor.  In  old  times  when  plague 
struck  a  city,  the  priests  marched  through  the  streets 
bearing  the  Host,  and  the  people  knelt  to  pray ;  now  the 
authorities  serve  out  soap  and  medicine  and  look  sharply 
to  the  drains. 

And  yet  there  still  remains  a  superstitious  belief  in 
prayer,  and  most  surprising  are  some  of  its  manifesta- 
tions. 

For  instance,  I  went  recently  to  see  Wilson  Barrett  in 
The  Silver  King.  Wilfrid  Denver,  a  drunken  gambler, 
follows  a  rival  to  kill  him.  He  does  not  kill  him,  but  he 
thinks  he  has  killed  him.     He  flies  from  justice. 

Now,  this  man  Denver  leaves  London  by  a  fast  train 
for  Liverpool.  Between  London  and  Rugby  he  jumps 
out  of  the  train,  and,  after  limping  many  miles,  goes  to  an 
inn,  orders  dinner  and  a  private  room,  and  asks  for  the 
evening  paper. 

While  he  waits  for  the  paper  he  kneels  down  and  prays 
to  God,  for  the  sake  of  wife  and  children,  to  allow  him  to 
escape. 

And,  directly  after,  in  comes  a  girl  with  the  paper,  and 
Denver  reads  how  the  train  he  rode  in  caught  fire,  and 
how  all  the  passengers  in  the  first  three  coaches  were 
burnt  to  cinders. 

Down  goes  Denver  on  his  knees,  and  thanks  God  for 
listening  to  his  prayer. 

And  not  a  soul  in  the  audience  laughed.  God,  to  allow 
a  murderer  to  escape  from  the  law,  has  burnt  to  death  a 
lot  of  innocent  passengers,  and  Wilfrid  Denver  is  piously 
grateful.     And  nobody  laughed! 


io8  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

But  Christians  tell  us  they  know  that  prayer  is  effica- 
cious. And  to  them  it  may  be  so  in  some  measure.  Per- 
haps, if  a  man  pray  for  strength  to  resist  temptation,  or 
for  guidance  in  time  of  perplexity,  and  if  he  have  faith, 
his  prayer  shall  avail  him  something. 

Why?  Not  because  God  v^ill  hear,  or  answer,  but  for 
two  natural  reasons. 

First,  the  act  of  prayer  is  emotional,  and  so  calms  the 
man  who  prays,  for  much  of  his  excitement  is  worked 
off.  It  is  so  when  a  sick  man  groans :  it  eases  his  pain. 
It  is  so  when  a  woman  weeps:  it  relieves  her  over- 
charged heart. 

Secondly,  the  act  of  prayer  gives  courage  or  confidence, 
in  proportion  to  the  faith  of  him  that  prays.  If  a  man 
has  to  cross  a  deep  ravine  by  a  narrow  plank,  and  if  his 
heart  fail  him,  and  he  prays  for  God's  help,  believing 
that  he  will  get  it,  he  will  walk  his  plank  with  more  con- 
fidence. If  he  prays  for  help  against  a  temptation,  he 
is  really  appealing  to  his  own  better  nature ;  he  is  rousing 
up  his  dormant  faculty  of  resistance  and  desire  for 
righteousness,  and  so  rises  from  his  knees  in  a  sweeter 
and  calmer  frame  of  mind. 

For  myself,  I  never  pray,  and  never  feel  the  need  of 
prayer.  And  though  I  admit,  as  above,  that  it  may  have 
some  present  advantage,  yet  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
it  is  bought  too  dearly  at  the  price  of  a  decrease  in  our 
self-reliance.  I  do  not  think  it  is  good  for  a  man  to  be 
always  asking  for  help,  for  benefits,  or  for  pardon.  It 
seems  to  me  that  such  a  habit  must  tend  to  weaken  char- 
acter. 

"  He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best  all  things  both  great 
and  small."  It  is  better  to  work  for  the  general  good,  to 
help  our  weak  or  friendless  fellow-creatures,  than  to  pray 


PRAYER  AND  PRAISE  109 

for  our  own  grace,  or  benefit,  or  pardon.  Work  is  nobler 
than  prayer,  and  far  more  dignified. 

And  as  to  praise.  I  cannot  imagine  the  Creator  of  the 
Universe  wanting  men's  praise.  Does  a  wise  man  prize 
the  praise  of  fools  ?  Does  a  strong  man  value  the  praise 
of  the  weak?  Does  any  man  of  wisdom  and  power  care 
for  the  applause  of  his  inferiors? 

We  make  God  into  a  puny  man,  a  man  full  of  vanity 
and  *'  love  of  approbation,"  when  we  confer  on  Him  the 
impertinence  of  our  prayers  and  our  adoration. 

While  there  is  so  much  grief  and  misery  and  unmerited 
and  avoidable  suffering  in  the  world,  it  is  pitiful  to  see 
the  Christian  millions  squander  such  a  wealth  of  time 
and  energy  and  money  on  praise  and  prayer. 

If  you  were  a  human  father,  would  you  rather  your 
children  praised  you  and  neglected  each  other,  or  that 
brother  should  stand  by  brother  and  sister  cherish 
sister?  Then  "  how  much  more  your  Father  which  is  in 
Heaven?" 

Twelve  millions  of  our  British  people  on  the  brink  of 
starvation !  In  Christian  England  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  thieves,  knaves,  idlers,  drunkards,  cowards,  and  har- 
lots; and  fortunes  spent  on  churches  and  the  praise  of 
God. 

If  the  Bible  had  not  habituated  us  to  the  idea  of  a 
barbarous  God  who  was  always  ravenous  for  praise  and 
sacrifice,  we  could  not  tolerate  the  mockery  of  "  Divine 
Service  "  by  well-fed  and  respectable  Christians  in  the 
midst  of  untaught  ignorance,  unchecked  roguery,  un- 
bridled vice,  and  the  degradation  and  defilement  and  ruin 
of  weak  women  and  little  children.  Seven  thousand 
pounds  to  repair  a  chapel  to  the  praise  and  glory  of  God, 
and  under  its  very  walls  you  may  buy  a  woman's  soul  for 
a  few  pieces  of  silver. 


no  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

I  cannot  imagine  a  God  who  would  countenance  such 
a  reHgion.  I  cannot  understand  why  Christians  are  not 
ashamed  of  it.  To  me  the  national  affectation  of  piety 
and  holiness  resembles  a  white  shirt  put  on  over  a  dirty 
skin. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 


THE  RESURRECTION 

Value  of  the  Evidence  in  Law 

Christianity  as  a  religion  must,  I  am  told,  stand  or  fall 
with  the  claims  that  Christ  was  divine,  and  that  He  rose 
from  the  dead  and  ascended  into  Heaven.  Archdeacon 
Wilson,  in  a  sermon  at  Rochdale,  described  the  divinity 
and  Resurrection  of  Christ  as  "  the  central  doctrines  of 
Christianity."  The  question  we  have  to  consider  here  is 
the  question  of  whether  these  central  doctrines  are  true. 

Christians  are  fond  of  saying  that  the  Resurrection  is 
one  of  the  best  attested  facts  in  history.  I  hold  that  the 
evidence  for  the  Resurrection  would  not  be  listened  to 
in  a  court  of  law,  and  is  quite  inadmissible  in  a  court  of 
cool  and  impartial  reason. 

First  of  all,  then,  what  is  the  fact  which  this  evidence 
is  supposed  to  prove  ?  The  fact  alleged  is  a  most  marvel- 
ous miracle,  and  one  upon  which  a  religion  professed  by 
some  hundreds  of  millions  of  human  beings  is  founded. 
The  fact  alleged  is  that  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago 
God  came  into  the  world  as  a  man,  that  He  was  known 
as  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  that  He  was  crucified,  died  upon 
the  cross,  was  laid  in  a  tomb,  and  on  the  third  day  came 
to  life  again,  left  His  tomb,  and  subsequently  ascended 
into  Heaven. 

The  fact  alleged,  then,  is  miraculous  and  important, 
and  the  evidence  in  proof  of  such  a  fact  should  be  over- 
whelmingly strong. 

We  should  demand  stronger  evidence  in  support  of  a 
J13 


114  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

thing  alleged  to  have  happened  a  thousand  years  ago  than 
we  should  demand  in  support  of  a  fact  alleged  to  have 
happened  yesterday. 

The  Resurrection  is  alleged  to  have  happened  eighteen 
centuries  ago. 

We  should  demand  stronger  evidence  in  support  of  an 
alleged  fact  which  was  outside  human  experience  than  we 
should  demand  in  support  of  a  fact  common  to  human 
experience. 

The  incarnation  of  a  God  in  human  form,  the  resurrec- 
tion of  a  man  or  a  God  from  the  dead,  are  facts  outside 
human  experience. 

We  should  demand  stronger  evidence  in  support  of  an 
alleged  fact  when  the  establishment  of  that  fact  was  of 
great  importance  to  millions  of  men  and  women,  than 
we  should  demand  when  the  truth  or  falsity  of  the  al- 
leged fact  mattered  very  little  to  anybody. 

The  alleged  fact  of  the  Resurrection  is  of  immense  im- 
portance to  hundreds  of  millions  of  people. 

We  should  demand  stronger  evidence  in  support  of  an 
alleged  fact  when  many  persons  were  known  to  have 
strong  political,  sentimental,  or  mercenary  motives  for 
proving  the  fact  alleged,  than  we  should  demand  when 
no  serious  interest  would  be  affected  by  a  decision  for  or 
against  the  fact  alleged. 

There  are  millions  of  men  and  women  known  to  have 
strong  motives  —  sentimental,  political,  or  mercenary  — 
for  proving  the  verity  of  the  Resurrection. 

On  all  these  counts  we  are  justified  in  demanding  the 
strongest  of  evidence  for  the  alleged  fact  of  Christ's 
resurrection  from  the  dead. 

The  more  abnormal  or  unusual  the  occurrence,  the 
weightier  should  be  the  evidence  of  Its  truth. 

If  a  man  told  a  mixed  company  that  Captain  Webb 


THE  RESURRECTION  115 

swam  the  English  Channel,  he  would  have  a  good  chance 
of  belief. 

The  incident  happened  but  a  few  years  ago,  it  was  re- 
ported in  all  the  newspapers  of  the  day.  It  is  not  in  it- 
self an  impossible  thing  for  a  man  to  do. 

But  if  the  same  man  told  the  same  audience  that  five 
hundred  years  ago  an  Irish  sailor  had  swum  from  Holy- 
head to  New  York,  his  statement  would  be  received  with 
less  confidence. 

Because  five  centuries  is  a  long  time,  there  is  no  credi- 
ble record  of  the  feat,  and  we  cannot  believe  any  man 
capable  of  swimming  about  four  thousand  miles. 

Let  us  look  once  more  at  the  statement  made  by  the 
believers  in  the  Resurrection. 

We  are  asked  to  believe  that  the  all-powerful  external 
God,  the  God  who  created  twenty  millions  of  suns,  came 
down  to  earth,  was  born  of  a  woman,  was  crucified,  was 
dead,  was  laid  in  a  tomb  for  three  days,  and  then  came  to 
life  again,  and  ascended  into  Heaven. 

What  is  the  nature  of  the  evidence  produced  in  sup- 
port of  this  tremendous  miracle? 

Is  there  any  man  or  woman  alive  who  has  seen  God? 
No.  Is  there  any  man  or  woman  alive  who  has  seen 
Christ?     No. 

There  is  no  human  being  alive  who  can  say  that  God 
exists  or  that  Christ  exists.  The  most  they  can  say  is 
that  they  believe  that  God  and  Christ  exist. 

No  historian  claims  that  any  God  has  been  seen  on 
earth  for  nearly  nineteen  centuries. 

The  Christians  deny  the  assertions  of  all  other  re- 
ligions as  to  divine  visits ;  and  all  the  other  religions  deny 
their  assertions  about  God  and  Christ. 

There  is  no  reason  why  God  should  have  come  down 
to  earth,  to  be  born  of  a  woman,  and  die  on  the  cross. 


Ii6  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

He  could  have  convinced  and  won  over  mankind  with- 
out any  such  act.  He  has  not  convinced  nor  won  over 
mankind  by  that  act.  Not  one-third  of  mankind  are 
professing  Christians  to-day,  and  of  those  not  one  in 
ten  is  a  true  Christian  and  a  true  believer. 

The  Resurrection,  therefore,  seems  to  have  been  un- 
reasonable, unnecessary,  and  futile.  It  is  also  contrary 
to  science  and  to  human  experience.      '■ 

What  is  the  nature  of  the  evidence? 

The  common  idea  of  the  man  in  the  street  is  the  idea 
that  the  Gospels  were  written  by  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke, 
and  John;  that  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John  were 
contemporaries  of  Christ;  and  that  the  Gospels  were 
written  and  circulated  during  the  lives  of  the  authors. 

There  is  no  evidence  to  support  these  beliefs.  There 
is  no  evidence,  outside  the  New  Testament,  that  any  of 
the  Apostles  ever  existed.  We  know  nothing  about 
Paul,  Peter,  John,  Mark,  Luke,  or  Matthew,  except 
what  is  told  in  the  New  Testament. 

Outside  the  Testament  there  is  not  a  word  of  histor- 
ical evidence  of  the  divinity  of  Christ,  of  the  virgin 
birth,  of  the  Resurrection  or  Ascension. 

Therefore  it  is  obvious  that,  before  we  can  be  expected 
to  believe  the  tremendous  story  of  the  Resurrection,  we 
must  be  shown  overwhelming  evidence  of  the  authen- 
ticity of  the  Scriptures. 

Before  you  can  prove  your  miracle  you  have  to  prove 
your  book. 

Suppose  the  case  to  come  before  a  judge.  Let  us 
try  to  imagine  what  would  happen : 

Counsel:  M'lud,  may  it  please  your  ludship.    It  is  stated  by 
Paul  of  Tarsus  that  he  and  others  worked  miracles  — 
The  Judge:  Do  you  intend  to  call  Paul  of  Tarsus? 
Counsel:  No,   m'lud.    He  is  dead. 
Judge:  Did  he  make  a  proper  sworn  deposition? 


THE  RESURRECTION  117 

Counsel:  No,  m'lud.  But  some  of  his  letters  are  extant,  and 
I  propose  to  put  them  in. 

Judge:  Are  these  letters  affidavits?  Are  they  witnessed  and 
attested  ? 

Counsel:  No,  m'lud. 

Judge:  Are  they  signed? 
^  Counsel:  No,  m'lud. 

Judge:  Are  they  in  the  handwriting  of  this  Paul  of  Tarsus? 

Counsel:  No,  m'lud.    They  are  copies;  the  originals  are  lost. 

Judge:  Who  was  Paul  of  Tarsus? 

Counsel:  M'lud,  he  was  the  apostle  to  the  Gentiles. 

Judge:  You  intend  to  call  some  of  these  Gentiles? 

Counsel:  No,  m'lud.    There  are  none  living. 

Judge  :  But  you  don't  mean  to  say  —  how  long  has  this  shadowy 
witness,  Paul  of  Tarsus,  been  dead? 

Counsel:  Not  two  thousand  years,  m'lud. 

Judge:  Thousand  years  dead?  Can  you  bring  evidence  to 
prove  that  he  was  ever  alive? 

Counsel:  Circumstantial,  m'lud. 

Judge:  I  cannot  allow  you  to  read  the  alleged  statements  of  a 
hypothetical  witness  who  is  acknowledged  to  have  been  dead  for 
nearly  two  thousand  years.  I  cannot  admit  the  alleged  letters 
of  Paul  as  evidence. 

Counsel:  I  shall  show  that  the  act  of  resurrection  was  wit- 
nessed by  one  Mary  Magdalene,  by  a  Roman  soldier  — 

Judge:  What  is  the  soldier's  name? 

Counsel:  I  don't  know,  m'lud. 

Judge:  Call  him. 

Counsel:  He  is  dead,  m'lud. 

Judge:  Deposition? 

Counsel:  No,  m'lud. 

Judge  :  Strike  out  his  evidence.    Call  Mary  Magdalene. 

Counsel:  She  is  dead,  m'lud.  But  I  shall  show  that  she  told 
the  disciples  — 

Judge:  What  she  told  the  disciples  is  not  evidence. 

Counsel  :  Well,  m'lud,  I  shall  give  the  statements  of  Matthew, 
Mark,  Luke,  and  John.     Matthew  states  very  plainly  that  — 

Judge:  Of  course,  you  intend  to  call  Matthew? 

Counsel:  No,  m'lud.    He  is  —  he  is  dead. 

Judge  :  It  seems  to  me  that  to  prove  this  resurrection  you  will 
have  to  perform  a  great  many  more.  Are  Mark  and  John  dead, 
also? 

Counsel:  Yes,  m'lud. 

Judge:  Who  were  they? 

Counsel  :  I  —  I  don't  know,  m'lud. 

Judge:  These  statements  of  theirs,  to  which  you  allude;  are 
they  in  their  own  handwriting? 

Counsel  :  May  it  please  you  ludship,  they  did  not  write  them. 
The  statements  are  not  given  as  their  own  statements,  but  only 
as  statements  "according  to  them."    The  statements  are  really 


ii8  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

copies  of  translations  of  copies  of  translations  of  statements  sup- 
posed  to   be  based   upon   what   someone  told   Matthew,   and  — 

Judge:  Who  copied  and  translated,  and  re-copied  and  re- 
translated, this  hearsay  evidence? 

Counsel:  I  do  not  know,  m'lud. 

Judge  :  Were  the  copies  seen  and  revised  by  the  authors  ?  Di<J 
they  correct  the  proofs? 

Counsel:  I  don't  know,  m'lud. 

Judge:  Don't  know?     Why? 

Counsel:  There  is  no  evidence  that  the  documents  had  ever 
been  heard  of  until  long  after  the  authors  were  dead. 

Judge:  I  never  heard  of  such  a  case.  I  cannot  allow  you  to 
quote  these  papers.  They  are  not  evidence.  Have  you  any  wit- 
nesses? 

Counsel:  No,  m'lud. 

That  fancy  dialogue  about  expresses  the  legal  value 
of  the  evidence  for  this  important  miracle. 

But,  legal  value  not  being  the  only  value,  let  us  now 
consider  the  evidence  as  mere  laymen. 


THE  GOSPEL  WITNESSES 

As  men  of  the  world,  with  some  experience  in  sifting 
and  weighing  evidence,  what  can  we  say  about  the 
evidence  for  the  Resurrection? 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  no  acceptable  evidence  out- 
side the  New  Testament,  and  the  New  Testament  is  the 
authority  of  the  Christian  Church. 

In  the  second  place,  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  the 
Gospels  were  written  by  eye-witnesses  of  the  alleged 
fact. 

In  the  third  place,  the  Apostle  Paul  was  not  an  eye- 
witness of  the  alleged  fact. 

In  the  fourth  place,  although  there  is  some  evidence 
that  some  Gospels  were  known  in  the  first  century,  there 
is  no  evidence  that  the  Gospels  as  we  know  them  were 
then  in  existence. 

In  the  fifth  place,  even  supposing  that  the  existing 
Gospels  and  the  Epistles  of  Paul  were  originally  com- 
posed by  men  who  knew  Christ,  and  that  these  men 
were  entirely  honest  and  capable  witnesses,  there  is  no 
certainty  that  what  they  wrote  has  come  down  to  us 
unaltered. 

The  only  serious  evidence  of  the  Resurrection  being 
in  the  books  of  the  New  Testament,  we  are  bound  to 
scrutinize  those  books  closely,  as  on  their  testimony  the 
case  for  Christianity  entirely  depends. 

Who,  then,  are  the  witnesses?  They  are  the  authors 
of  the  Gospels,  the  Acts,  and  the  Epistles  of  Peter  and 
of  Paul. 

119 


120  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

Who  were  these  authors?  Matthew  and  John  are 
"  supposed  "  to  have  been  disciples  of  Christ ;  but  were 
they?  I  should  say  Matthew  certainly  was  not  contem- 
porary with  Jesus,  for  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  Gospel 
according  to  Matthew  we  read  as  follows: 

Now  while  they  were  going  behold  some  of  the  guard  came 
into  the  city,  and  told  unto  the  chief  priests  all  the  things  that 
were  come  to  pass.  And  when  they  were  assembled  with  the 
elders,  and  had  taken  counsel,  they  gave  large  money  unto  the 
soldiers,  saying.  Say  ye  his  disciples  came  by  night,  and  stole 
him  away  while  we  slept.  And  if  this  come  to  the  governor's 
ears,  we  will  persuade  him,  and  rid  you  of  care.  So  they  took 
the  money,  and  did  as  they  were  taught:  and  this  saying  was 
spread  abroad  among  the  Jews,  and  continueth  until  this  day. 

Matthew  tells  us  that  the  saying  "  continueth  until 
this  day."  Which  day?  The  day  on  which  Matthew 
is  writing  or  speaking.  Now,  a  man  does  not  say  of  a 
report  or  beHef  that  it  "  continueth  until  this  day  "  un- 
less that  report  or  belief  originated  a  long  time  ago, 
and  the  use  of  such  a  phrase  suggests  that  Matthew 
told  or  repeated  the  story  after  a  lapse  of  many  years. 

That  apart,  there  is  no  genuine  historical  evidence, 
outside  the  New  Testament,  that  such  men  as  Paul, 
Peter,  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John  ever  existed. 

Neither  can  it  be  claimed  that  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke, 
and  John  actually  wrote  the  Gospels  which  bear  their 
names.  These  Gospels  are  called  the  Gospel  "  accord- 
ing to  Matthew,"  the  Gospel  "  according  to  Mark,"  the 
Gospel  "  according  to  Luke,"  and  the  Gospel  "  accord- 
ing to  John."  They  were,  then.  Gospels  condensed, 
paraphrased,  or  copied  from  some  older  Gospels,  or 
they  were  Gospels  taken  down  from  dictation,  or  com- 
posed from  the  verbal  statements  of  the  men  to  whom 
they  were  attributed. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  Gospels  are  merely  reports 
or  copies  of  some  verbal  or  written  statements  made  by 


THE  GOSPEL  WITNESSES  wi 

four  men  of  whom  there  is  no  historic  record  what- 
ever. 

How  are  we  to  know  that  these  men  ever  Hved  ?  How 
are  we  to  know  that  they  were  correctly  reported,  if 
they  ever  spoke  or  wrote  ?  How  can  we  rely  upon  such 
evidence  after  nineteen  hundred  years,  and  upon  a  state- 
ment of  facts  so  important  and  so  marvelous? 

The  same  objection  applies  to  the  evidence  of  Peter 
and  of  Paul.  Many  critics  and  scholars  deny  the  ex- 
istence of  Peter  and  Paul.  There  is  no  trustworthy 
evidence  to  oppose  to  that  conclusion. 

That  by  the  way.  Let  us  now  examine  the  evidence 
given  in  these  men's  names.  The  earliest  witness  is 
Paul.  Paul  does  not  corroborate  the  Gospel  writers* 
statements  as  to  the  life  or  the  teachings  of  Christ;  but 
he  does  vehemently  assert  that  Christ  rose  from  the 
dead. 

What  is  Paul's  evidence  worth?  He  did  not  see 
Christ  crucified.  He  did  not  see  His  dead  body.  He 
did  not  see  Him  quit  the  tomb.  He  did  not  see  Him  in 
the  flesh  after  He  had  quitted  the  tomb.  He  was  not 
present  when  He  ascended  into  Heaven.  Therefore 
Paul  is  not  an  eye-witness  of  the  acts  of  Christ,  nor  of 
the  death  of  Christ,  nor  of  the  Resurrection  of  Christ, 
nor  of  the  Ascension  of  Christ. 

If  Paul  ever  lived,  which  none  can  prove  and  many 
deny,  his  evidence  for  the  Resurrection  was  only  hear- 
say evidence. 

Paul,  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  says  that  after 
His  Resurrection  Christ  was  '*  seen  of  about  five  hun- 
dred persons;  of  whom  the  great  part  remain  unto  this 
present,  but  some  are  fallen  asleep." 

But  none  of  the  Gospels  mentions  this  five  hundred, 
nor  does  Paul  give  the  name  of  any  one  of  them,  nor 


122  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

is  the  testimony  of  any  one  of  them  preserved,  in  the 
Testament  or  elsewhere. 

Now,  let  us  remember  how  difficult  it  was  to  disprove 
the  statements  of  the  claimant  in  the  Tichborne  Case, 
although  the  trial  took  place  in  the  lifetime  of  the 
claimant,  and  although  most  of  the  witnesses  knew  the 
real  Roger  Tichborne  well ;  and  let  us  also  bear  in  mind 
that  many  critics  and  scholars  dispute  the  authorship 
of  Shakespeare's  plays,  as  to  which  strong  contemporary 
evidence  is  forthcoming,  and  then  let  us  ask  ourselves 
whether  we  shall  be  justified  in  believing  such  a  marvel- 
ous story  as  this  of  the  Resurrection  upon  the  evidence 
of  men  whose  existence  cannot  be  proved,  and  in  sup- 
port of  whose  statements  there  is  not  a  scrap  of  histor- 
ical evidence  of  any  kind. 

Nor  is  this  all.  The  stories  of  the  Resurrection  as 
told  in  the  Gospels  are  full  of  discrepancies,  and  are 
rendered  incredible  by  the  interpolation  of  miraculous 
incidents. 

Let  us  begin  with  Matthew.  Did  Matthew  see  Christ 
crucified?  Did  Matthew  see  Christ's  dead  body?  Did 
Matthew  see  Christ  quit  the  tomb?  Did  Matthew  see 
Christ  in  the  flesh  and  alive  after  His  Resurrection? 
Did  Matthew  see  Christ  ascend  into  heaven?  Matthew 
nowhere  s.ays  so.  Nor  is  it  stated  by  any  other  writer  in 
the  Testament  that  Matthew  saw  any  of  these  things. 
No :  Matthew  nowhere  gives  evidence  in  his  own  name. 
Only,  in  the  Gospel  "  according  to  Matthew  "  it  is  stated 
that  such  things  did  happen. 

Matthew's  account  of  the  Resurrection  and  the  inci- 
dents connected  therewith  differs  from  the  accounts  in 
the  other  Gospels. 

The  story  quoted  above  from  Matthew  as  to  the  brib- 
ing of  Roman  soldiers  by  the  priests  to  circulate  the 


THE  GOSPEL  WITNESSES  123 

falsehood  about  the  steahng  of  Christ's  body  by  His 
disciples  is  not  alluded  to  by  Mark,  Luke,  or  John. 

Matthew,  in  his  account  of  the  fact  of  the  Resurrec- 
tion, says  that  there  was  an  earthquake  when  the  angel 
Tolled  away  the  stone.  In  the  other  Gospels  there  is  no 
word  of  this  earthquake. 

But  not  in  any  of  the  Gospels  is  it  asserted  that  any 
man  or  woman  saw  Jesus  leave  the  tomb. 

The  story  of  His  actual  rising  from  the  dead  was  first 
told  by  some  woman,  or  women,  who  said  they  had 
seen  an  angel,  or  angels,  who  had  declared  that  Jesus 
was  risen. 

There  is  not  an  atom  of  evidence  that  these  young 
men  who  told  the  story  were  angels.  There  is  not  an 
atom  of  evidence  that  they  were  not  men,  nor  that  they 
had  not  helped  to  revive  or  to  remove  the  swooned  or 
dead  Jesus. 

Stress  has  been  laid  upon  the  presence  of  the  Roman 
guard.  The  presence  of  such  a  guard  is  improbable. 
But  if  the  guard  was  really  there,  it  might  have  been  as 
easily  bribed  to  allow  the  body  to  be  removed,  as 
Matthew  suggests  that  it  was  easily  bribed  to  say  that 
the  body  had  been  stolen. 

Matthew  says  that  after  the  Resurrection  the  disciples 
were  ordered  to  go  to  Galilee.  Mark  says  the  same. 
Luke  says  they  were  commanded  not  to  leave  Jerusalem. 
John  says  they  did  go  to  Galilee. 

So,  again,  with  regard  to  the  Ascension.  Luke  and 
Mark  say  that  Christ  went  up  to  Heaven.  Matthew 
and  John  do  not  so  much  as  mention  the  Ascension. 
And  it  is  curious,  as  Mr.  Foote  points  out,  that  the  two 
apostles  who  were  supposed  to  have  been  disciples  of 
Christ,  and  might  be  supposed  to  have  seen  the  Ascen- 
sion, if  it  took  place,  do  not  mention  it.     The  story  of 


124  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

the  Ascension  comes  to  us  from  Luke  and  Mark,  who 
were  not  present. 

Jesus  rose  from  the  dead  on  the  third  day.  Yet  Luke 
makes  Him  say  to  the  thief  on  the  cross :  "  Verily  I 
say  unto  thee,  to-day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  Para- 
dise." Matthew,  Mark,  and  John  do  not  repeat  this 
blunder. 

There  are  many  other  differences  and  contradictions 
in  the  Gospel  versions  of  the  Resurrection  and  Ascen- 
sion; but  as  I  do  not  regard  those  differences  as  impor- 
tant, I  shall  pass  them  by. 

Whether  or  not  the  evidence  of  these  witnesses  be 
contradictory,  the  facts  remain  that  no  one  of  them 
states  that  he  knows  anything  about  the  matter  of  his 
own  knowledge;  that  no  one  of  them  claims  to  have 
himself  heard  the  story  of  the  woman,  or  the  women, 
or  the  angels ;  that  no  one  of  them  states  that  the  women 
saw,  or  said  they  saw,  Christ  leave  the  tomb. 

As  for  the  alleged  appearances  of  Christ  to  the  disci- 
ples, those  appearances  may  be  explained  in  several  ways. 
We  may  say  that  Christ  really  had  risen  from  the  dead, 
and  was  miraculously  present;  we  may  say  that  the 
accounts  of  His  miraculous  appearance  are  legends;  or 
we  may  say  that  His  reappearance  was  not  miraculous 
at  all,  for  He  had  never  died,  but  only  swooned. 

As  Huxley  remarked,  when  we  are  asked  to  consider 
an  alleged  case  of  resurrection,  the  first  essential  fact 
to  make  sure  of  is  the  fact  of  death.  Before  we  argue 
as  to  whether  a  dead  man  came  to  life,  let  us  have 
evidence  that  he  was  dead. 

Considering  the  story  of  the  crucifixion  as  historical, 
it  cannot  be  said  that  the  evidence  of  Christ's  death  is 
conclusive. 

Death   by   crucifixion   was   generally   a    slow    death. 


THE  GOSPEL  WITNESSES  125 

Men  often  lingered  on  the  cross  for  days  before  they 
died.  Now,  Christ  was  only  on  the  cross  for  a  few 
hours;  and  Pilate  is  reported  as  expressing  surprise 
when  told  that  he  was  dead. 

,  To  make  sure  that  the  other  prisoners  were  dead,  the 
soldiers  broke  their  legs.  But  they  did  not  break  Christ's 
legs. 

To  be  sure,  the  Apostle  John  reports  that  a  soldier 
pierced  Christ's  side  with  a  spear.  But  the  authors  of 
the  three  synoptic  Gospels  do  not  mention  this  wound- 
ing with  the  spear.  Neither  do  they  allude  to  the  other 
story  told  by  John,  as  to  the  skepticism  of  Thomas,  and 
his  putting  his  hand  into  the  wound  made  by  the  spear. 
It  is  curious  that  John  is  the  only  one  to  tell  both  stories : 
so  curious  that  both  stories  look  like  interpellations. 

But  even  if  we  accept  the  story  of  the  spear  thrust,  it 
affords  no  proof  of  death,  for  John  adds  that  there  issued 
from  the  wound  blood  and  water;  and  blood  does  not 
flow  from  wounds  inflicted  after  death. 

Then,  when  the  body  of  Christ  was  taken  down  from 
the  cross,  it  was  not  examined  by  any  doctor,  but  was 
taken  away  by  friends,  and  laid  in  a  cool  sepulcher. 

What  evidence  is  forthcoming  that  Christ  did  not  re- 
cover from  a  swoon,  and  that  His  friends  did  not 
take  Him  away  in  the  night?  Remember,  we  are  deal- 
ing with  probabilities,  in  the  absence  of  any  exact  knowl- 
edge of  the  facts,  and  consider  which  is  more  prob- 
able—  that  a  man  had  swooned  and  recovered;  or  that 
a  man,  after  lying  for  three  days  dead,  should  come  to 
life  again,  and  walk  away? 

Apologists  will  say  that  the  probabilities  in  the  case 
of  a  man  do  not  hold  in  the  case  of  a  God.  But  there 
is  no  evidence  at  all  that  Christ  was  God.  Prove  that 
Christ  was  God,  and  therefore  that  He  was  omnipotent, 


126  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

and   there   is   nothing   impossible   in  the   Resurrection, 
however  improbable  His  death  may  seem. 

Even  assuming  that  the  Gospels  are  historical  docu- 
ments, the  evidence  for  Christ's  death  is  unsatisfactory, 
and  that  for  His  Resurrection  quite  inadequate.  But 
is  there  any  reason  to  regard  the  Gospel  stories  of  the 
death,  Resurrection,  and  Ascension  of  Christ  as  histor- 
ical? I  say  that  we  have  no  surety  that  these  stories 
have  come  down  to  us  as  they  were  originally  compiled, 
and  we  have  strong  reasons  for  concluding  that  these 
stories  are  mythical. 

Some  two  or  three  years  ago  the  Rev.  R.  Horton 
said :  "  Either  Christ  was  the  Son  of  God,  and  one  with 
God,  or  He  was  a  bad  man,  or  a  madman.  There  is  no 
fourth  alternative  possible."  That  is  a  strange  state- 
ment to  make,  but  it  is  an  example  of  the  shifts  to  which 
apologists  are  frequently  reduced.  No  fourth  alterna- 
tive possible!     Indeed  there  is;  and  a  fifth! 

If  a  man  came  forward  to-day,  and  said  he  was  the 
Son  of  God,  and  one  with  God,  we  should  conclude  that 
He  was  an  impostor  or  a  lunatic. 

But  if  a  man  told  us  that  another  man  had  said  he 
was  a  god,  we  should  have  what  Mr.  Horton  calls  a 
"  fourth  alternative "  open  to  us.  For  we  might  say 
that  the  person  who  reported  his  speech  to  us  had  mis- 
understood him,  which  would  be  a  "  fourth  alterna- 
tive " ;  or  that  the  person  had  willfully  misrepresented 
him,  which  would  be  a  fifth  alternative. 

So  in  the  Gospels.  Nowhere  have  we  a  single  word 
of  Christ's  own  writing.  His  sayings  come  to  us  through 
several  hands,  and  through  more  than  one  translation. 
It  is  folly,  then,  to  assert  that  Christ  was  God,  or  that 
He  was  mad,  or  an  impostor. 

So  in  the  case  of  the  Gospel  stories  of  the  Crucifixion, 


THE  GOSPEL  WITNESSES  127 

the  Resurrection,  and  Ascension  of  Christ.  Many 
worthy  people  may  suppose  that  in  denying  the  facts 
stated  in  the  Gospels  we  are  accusing  St.  Matthew  and 
St.  John  of  falsehood. 

But  there  is  no  certainty  who  St.  Matthew  and  the 
others  were.  There  is  no  certainty  that  they  wrote  these 
stories.  Even  if  they  did  write  them,  they  probably  ac- 
cepted them  at  second  or  third  hand.  With  the  best 
faith  in  the  world,  they  may  not  have  been  competent 
judges  of  evidence.  And  after  they  had  done  their  best 
their  testimony  may  have  been  added  to  or  perverted 
by  editors  and  translators. 

Looking  at  the  Gospels,  then,  as  we  should  look  at 
any  other  ancient  documents,  what  internal  evidence  do 
they  afford  in  support  of  the  suspicion  that  they  are 
mythical  ? 

In  the  first  place,  the  whole  Gospel  story  teems  with 
miracles.  Now,  as  Matthew  Arnold  said,  miracles  never 
happen.  Science  has  made  the  belief  in  miracles  im- 
possible. When  we  speak  of  the  antagonism  between 
religion  and  science,  it  is  this  fact  which  we  have  in  our 
mind:  that  science  has  killed  the  belief  in  miracles,  and, 
as  all  religions  are  built  up  upon  the  miraculous,  science 
and  religion  cannot  be  made  to  harmonize. 

As  Huxley  said: 

The  magistrate  who  listens  with  devout  attention  to  the  pre- 
cept,  "  Thou  shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live,"  on  Sunday,,  on 
Monday  dismisses,  as  intrinsically  absurd,  a  charge  of  bewitching 
a  cow  brought  against  some  old  woman;  the  superintendent  of  a 
lunatic  asylum,  who  substituted  exorcism  for  rational  modes  of 
treatment,  would  have  but  a  short  tenure  of  office;  even  parish 
clerks  doubt  the  utility  of  prayers  for  rain,  so  long  as  the  wind 
is  in  the  east;  and  an  outbreak  of  pestilence  sends  men,  not  to 
the  churches,  but  to  the  drains.  In  spite  of  prayers  for  the 
success  of  our  arms,  and  Te  Deums  for  victory,  our  real  faith  is 
in  big  battalions  and  keeping  our  powder  dry;  in  knowledge  of 
the  science  of  warfare;  in  energy,  courage,  and  discipline.    In 


128  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

these,  as  in  all  other  practical  affairs,  we  act  on  the  aphorism, 
Laborare  est  orare;  we  admit  that  intelligent  work  is  the  only 
acceptable  worship ;  and  that,  whether  there  be  a  Supernature  or 
not,  our  business  is  with  Nature. 

We  have  ceased  to  believe  in  miracles.  When  we 
come  upon  a  miracle  in  any  historical  document  we  feel 
not  only  that  the  miracle  is  untrue,  but  also  that  its 
presence  reduces  the  value  of  the  document  in  which 
it  is  contained.  Thus  Matthew  Arnold,  in  Literature 
and  Dogma,  after  saying  that  we  shall  "  find  ourselves 
inevitably  led,  sooner  or  latter,"  to  extend  one  rule  to 
all  miraculous  stories,  and  that  "  the  considerations 
which  apply  in  other  cases  apply,  we  shall  most  surely 
discover,  with  even  greater  force  in  the  case  of  Bible 
miracles,"  goes  on  to  declare  that  "this  being  so,  there 
is  nothing  one  would  more  desire  for  a  person  or  docu- 
ment one  greatly  values  than  to  make  them  independent 
miracles." 

Very  well.  The  Gospels  teem  with  miracles.  If  we 
make  the  accounts  of  the  death.  Resurrection,  and  As- 
cension of  Christ  "  independent  of  miracles,"  we  destroy 
those  accounts  completely.  To  make  the  Resurrection 
"  independent  of  miracles "  is  to  disprove  the  Resur- 
rection, which  is  a  miracle  or  nothing. 

We  must  believe  in  miracles,  or  disbelieve  in  the  Res- 
urrection ;  and  "  miracles  never  happen." 

We  must  beHeve  miracles,  or  disbelieve  them.  If  we 
disbelieve  them,  we  shall  lose  confidence  in  the  verity 
of  any  document  in  proportion  to  the  element  of  the 
miraculous  which  that  document  contains.  The  fact 
that  the  Gospels  teem  with  miracles  destroys  the  claim 
of  the  Gospels  to  serious  consideration  as  historic  evi- 
dence. 

Take,  for  example,  the  account  of  the  Crucifixion  in 
the  Gospel  according  to  Matthew.    While  Christ  is  on 


TriE  GOSPEL  WITNESSES  129 

the  cross,  "  from  the  sixth  hour  there  was  darkness 
over  all  the  land  until  the  ninth  hour,"  and  when  He 
dies,  "  behold,  the  veil  of  the  temple  was  rent  in  twain 
from  the  top  to  the  bottom;  and  the  earth  did  quake; 
♦and  the  rocks  were  rent,  and  the  tombs  were  opened; 
and  many  bodies  of  the  saints  that  had  fallen  asleep 
were  raised;  and  coming  forth  out  of  the  tombs  after 
His  Resurrection,  they  entered  into  the  holy  city,  and 
appeared  unto  many." 

Mark  mentions  the  rending  of  the  veil  of  the  temple, 
but  omits  the  darkness,  the  earthquake,  and  the  rising 
of  the  dead  saints  from  the  tombs.  Luke  tells  of  the 
same  phenomena  as  Mark;  John  says  nothing  about 
any  of  these  things. 

What  conclusion  can  we  come  to,  then,  as  to  the  story 
in  the  first  GospeP  Here  is  an  earthquake  and  the 
rising  of  dead  saints,  who  quit  their  graves  and 
enter  the  city,  and  three  out  of  the  four  Gospel  writers 
do  not  mention  it.  Neither  do  we  hear  another  word 
from  Matthew  on  the  subject.  The  dead  get  up  and 
walk  into  the  city,  and  "  are  seen  of  many,"  and  we 
are  left  to  wonder  what  happened  to  the  risen  saints, 
and  what  effect  their  astounding  apparition  had  upon 
the  citizens  who  saw  them.  Did  these  dead  saints  go 
back  to  their  tombs?  Did  the  citizens  receive  them  into 
their  midst  without  fear,  or  horror,  or  doubt?  Had 
this  stupendous  miracle  no  effect  upon  the  Jewish 
priests  who  had  crucified  Christ  as  an  impostor?  The 
Gospels  are  silent. 

History  is  as  silent  as  the  Gospels.  From  the  fifteenth 
chapter  of  the  first  volume  of  Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall 
of  the  Roman  Empire  I  take  the  following  passage: 

But  how  shall  we  excuse  the  supine  inattention  of  the  Pagan 
and  philosophic  world  to  those  evidences  which  were  presented 


130  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

by  the  hand  of  Omnipotence,  not  to  their  reason,  but  to  their 
senses?  During  the  age  of  Christ,  of  His  Apostles,  and  of  their 
first  disciples,  the  doctrine  which  they  preached  was  confirmed 
by  innumerable  prodigies.  The  lame  walked,  the  blind  saw,  the 
sick  were  healed,  the  dead  were  raised,  demons  were  expelled, 
and  the  laws  of  Nature  were  frequently  suspended  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  Church.  But  the  sages  of  Greece  and  Rome  turned 
aside  from  the  awful  spectacle,  and  pursuing  the  ordinary  occu- 
pations of  life  and  study,  appeared  unconscious  of  any  altera- 
tions in  the  moral  or  physical  government  of  the  world.  Under 
the  reign  of  Tiberius  the  whole  earth,  or  at  least  a  celebrated 
province  of  the  Roman  Empire,  was  involved  in  a  preternatural 
darkness  of  three  hours.  Even  this  miraculous  event,  which  ought 
to  have  excited  the  wonder,  the  curiosity,  and  the  devotion  of  all 
mankind,  passed  without  notice  in  an  age  of  science  and  history. 
It  happened  during  the  lifetime  of  Seneca  and  the  elder  Pliny, 
who  must  have  experienced  the  immediate  effects,  or  received  the 
earliest  intelligence  of  the  prodigy.  Each  of  these  philosophers,  in 
a  laborious  work,  has  recorded  all  the  great  phenomena  of 
Nature,  earthquakes,  meteors,  comets,  and  eclipses,  which  his  in- 
defatigable curiosity  could  collect.  But  the  one  and  the  other 
have  omitted  to  mention  the  greatest  phenomenon  to  which  mortal 
eye  has  been  witness  since  the  creation  of  the  globe.  A  distinct 
chapter  of  Pliny  is  designed  for  eclipses  of  an  extraordinary 
nature  and  unusual  duration;  but  he  contents  himself  with  de- 
scribing the  singular  defect  of  light  which  followed  the  murder 
of  Caesar,  when,  during  the  greatest  part  of  the  year,  the  orb  of 
the  sun  appeared  pale  and  without  splendor.  This  season  of  ob- 
scurity, which  surely  cannot  be  compared  with  the  preternatural 
darkness  of  the  Passion,  had  been  already  celebrated  by  most 
of  the  poets  and  historians  of  that  memorable  age. 

No  Greek  nor  Roman  historian  nor  scientist  mentioned 
that  strange  eclipse.  No  Jewish  historian  nor  scientist 
mentioned  the  rending  of  the  veil  of  the  temple,  nor 
the  rising  of  the  saints  from  the  dead.  Nor  do  the  Jew- 
ish priests  appear  to  have  been  alarmed  or  converted 
by  these  marvels. 

Confronted  by  this  silence  of  all  contemporary  histo- 
rians, and  by  the  silence  of  Mark,  Luke,  and  John,  what 
are  we  to  think  of  the  testimony  of  Matthew  on  these 
points?  Surely  we  can  only  endorse  the  opinion  of 
Matthew  Arnold: 

And  the  more  the  miraculousness  of  the  story  deepens,  as  after 
the  death  of  Jesus,  the  more  does  the  texture  of  the  incidents 


THE  GOSPEL  WITNESSES  131 

become  loose  and  floating,  the  more  does  the  very  air  and  aspect 
of  things  seem  to  tell  us  we  are  in  wonderland.  Jesus  after  his 
resurrection  not  known  by  Mary  Magdalene,  taken  by  her  for  the 
gardener;  appearing  in  another  form,  and  not  known  by  the  two 
disciples  going  with  him  to  Emmaus  and  at  supper  with  him.  there ; 
not  known  by  His  most  intimate  apostles  on  the  borders  of  the  Sea 
of  Galilee;  and  presently,  out  of  these  vague  beginnings,  the  rec- 
ognitions getting  asserted,  then  the  ocular  demonstrations,  the 
final  commissions,  the  ascension;  one  hardly  knows  which  of  the 
two  to  call  the  most  evident  here,  the  perfect  simpHcity  and  good 
faith  of  the  narrators,  or  the  plainness  with  which  they  them- 
selves really  say  to  us :  Behold  a  legend  growing  under  your  eyes! 

Behold  a  legend  growing  under  your  eyes!  Now, 
when  we  have  to  consider  a  miracle-story  or  a  legend, 
it  behoves  us  to  look,  if  that  be  possible,  into  the  times 
in  which  that  legend  is  placed.  What  was  the  ''  time 
spirit "  in  the  day  when  this  legend  arose  ?  What  was 
the  attitude  of  the  general  mind  towards  the  miraculous  ? 
To  what  stage  of  knowledge  and  science  had  those  who 
created  or  accepted  the  myth  attained  ?  These  are  points 
that  will  help  us  signally  in  any  attempt  to  understand 
such  a  story  as  the  Gospel  story  of  the  Resurrection. 


THE  TIME  SPIRIT  IN  THE  FIRST   CENTURY 

A  STORY  emanating  from  a  superstitious  and  unscientific 
people  would  be  received  with  more  doubt  than  a  story 
emanating  from  people  possessing  a  knowledge  of 
science,  and  not  prone  to  accept  stories  of  the  marvelous 
without  strict  and  full  investigation. 

A  miracle  story  from  an  Arab  of  the  Soudan  would 
be  received  with  a  smile,  a  statement  of  some  occult 
mystery  made  by  a  Huxley  or  a  Darwin  would  be  ac- 
corded a  respectful  hearing  and  a  serious  criticism. 

Now,  the  accounts  of  the  Resurrection  in  the  Gospels 
belong  to  the  less  credible  form  of  statement.  They 
emanated  from  a  credulous  and  superstitious  people  in 
an  unscientific  age  and  country. 

The  Jews  in  the  days  of  which  the  Gospels  are  sup- 
posed to  tell,  and  the  Jews  of  Old  Testament  times,  were 
unscientific  and  superstitious  people,  who  believed  in 
sorcery,  in  witches,  in  demons  and  angels,  and  in  all 
manner  of  miracles  and  supernatural  agents.  We  have 
only  to  read  the  Scriptures  to  see  that  it  was  so.  But 
I  shall  quote  here,  in  support  of  my  assertion,  the  opin- 
ions taken  by  the  author  of  Supernatural  Religion  from 
the  works  of  Dean  Milman  and  Dr.  Lightfoot.  In  his 
History  of  Christianity  Dean  Milman  speaks  of  the  Jews 
as  follows: 

The  Jews  of  that  period  not  only  believed  that  the  Supreme 
Being  had  the  power  of  controlling  the  course  of  nature,  but  that 
the  same  influence  was  possessed  by  multitudes  of  subordinate 
spirits,  both  good  and  evil.  Where  the  pious  Christian  of  the 
present  day  would  behold  the  direct  Agency  of  the  Almighty,  the 
Jews  would  have  invariably  have  interposed  an  angel  as  the 
author  or  ministerial  agent  in  the  wonderful  transaction.  Where 
the  Christian  moralist  would  condemn  the  fierce  passion,  the  un- 

132 


TIME  SPIRIT  IN  THE  FIRST  CENTURY     133 

governable  lust,  or  the  inhuman  temper,  the  Jew  discerned  the 
workings  of  diabolical  possession.  Scarcely  a  malady  was  en- 
dured, or  crime  committed,  which  was  not  traced  to  the  opera- 
tion of  one  of  these  myriad  demons,  who  watched  every  oppor- 
tunity of  exercising  their  malice  in  the  sufferings  and  the  sins  of 
men. 

*     Read  next  the  opinion  of  John  Lightfoot  D.D.,  Master 
of  Catherine  Hall,  Cambridge: 

.  .  .  Let  two  things  only  be  observed:  (i)  That  the  nation 
under  the  Second  Temple  was  given  to  magical  arts  beyond 
measure;  and  (2)  that  it  was  given  to  an  easiness  of  believing  all 
manner  of  delusions  beyond  measure.  .  .  .  It  is  a  disputable 
case  whether  the  Jewish  nation  were  more  mad  with  supersti- 
tion in  matters  of  religion,  or  with  superstition  in  curious  arts : 
(i)  There  was  not  a  people  upon  earth  that  studied  or  attrib- 
uted more  to  dreams  than  they;  (2)  there  was  hardly  any  people 
in  the  whole  world  that  more  used,  or  were  more  fond  of,  amu- 
lets, charms,  mutterings,  exorcisms,  and  all  kinds  of  enchantments. 

It  is  from  this  people,  "  mad  with  superstition  "  in  re- 
ligion and  in  sorcery,  the  most  credulous  people  in  the 
whole  world,  a  people  destitute  of  the  very  rudiments 
of  science,  as  science  is  understood  to-day  —  it  is  from 
this  people  that  the  unreasonable  and  impossible  stories 
of  the  Resurrection,  colored  and  distorted  on  every  page 
with  miracles,  come  down  to  us. 

We  do  not  believe  that  miracles  happen  now.  Are 
we,  on  the  evidence  of  such  a  people,  to  believe  that 
miracles  happened  two  thousand  years  ago? 

We  in  England  to-day  do  not  believe  that  miracles 
happen  now.  Some  of  us  believe,  or  persuade  ourselves 
that  we  believe,  that  miracles  did  happen  a  few  thousand 
years  ago. 

But  amongst  some  peoples  the  belief  in  miracles  still 
persists,  and  wherever  the  belief  in  miracles  is  strongest 
we  shall  find  that  the  people  who  believe  are  ignorant 
of  physical  science,  are  steeped  in  superstition,  or  are 
abjectly  subservient  to  the  authority  of  priests  or  fakirs. 
Scientific  knowledge  and  freedom  of  thought  and  speech 
are  fatal  to  superstition.     It  is  only  in  those  times,  or 


134  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

amongst  those  people,  where  ignorance  is  rampant,  or 
the  priest  is  dominant,  or  both,  that  miracles  are  be- 
lieved. 

It  will  be  urged  that  many  educated  Englishmen  still 
believe  the  Gospel  miracles.  That  is  true;  but  it  will  be 
found  in  nearly  all  such  cases  that  the  believers  have 
been  mentally  marred  by  the  baneful  authority  of  the 
Church.  Let  a  person  once  admit  into  his  system  the 
poisonous  principle  of  "  faith,"  and  his  judgment  in  re- 
ligious matters  will  be  injured  for  years,  and  probably 
for  Hfe. 

But  let  me  here  make  clear  what  I  mean  by  the  poison- 
ous principle  of  "  faith."     I  mean,  then,  the  deadly  prin- 
ciple that  we  are  to  believe  any  statement,  historical  or 
doctrinal,  without  evidence. 
■^       Thus  we  are  to  beneve  that  Christ  rose  from  the  dead 
1   because  the  Gospels  say  so.     When  we  ask  why  we  are 
to  accept  the  Gospels  as  true,  we  are  told  because  they 
are  inspired  by  God.     When  we  ask  who  says  that  the 
Gospels  are  inspired  by  God,  we  are  told  that  the  Church 
says  so.     When  we  ask  how  the  Church  knows,  we  are 
told  that  we  must  have  faith.     That  is  what  I  call  poison- 
ous principle.     That  is  the  poison  which  saps  the  judg- 
V  ment  and  perverts  the  human  kindness  of  men. 
{  '  The  late  Dr.  Carpenter  wrote  as  follows: 

^  It  has  been  my  business  lately  to  inquire  into  the  mental  condi- 
tion of  some  of  the  individuals  who  have  reported  the  most  re- 
markable occurrences.  I  cannot  —  it  would  not  be  fair  —  say  all 
I  could  with  regard  to  their  mental  condition ;  but  I  can  only  say 
this,  that  it  all  fits  in  perfectly  well  with  the  result  of  my  previous 
studies  upon  the  subject,  namely,  that  there  is  nothing  too  strange 
to  be  believed  by  those  who  have  once  surrendered!  their  judg- 
ment to  the  extent  of  accepting  as  credible  things  which  com- 
mon sense  tells  us  are  entirely  incredible. 

It  is  unwise  and  immoral  to  accept  any  important 
statement  without  proof. 


«HAVE  THE  DOCUMENTS  BEEN  TAMPERED 

WITH 

I  COME  now  to  a  phase  of  this  question  which  I  touch 
with  regret.  It  always  pains  me  to  acknowledge  that  any 
man,  even  an  adversary,  has  acted  dishonorably.  In  this 
discussion  I  would,  if  I  could,  avoid  the  imputation  of 
dishonesty  to  any  person  concerned  in  the  foundation 
or  adaptation  of  the  Christian  religion.  But  I  am  bound 
to  point  out  the  probability  that  the  Gospels  have  been 
tampered  with  by  unscrupulous  or  over-zealous  men. 
That  probability  is  very  strong,  and  very  important. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  too  well  known  to  make  denial 
possible  that  many  Gospels  have  been  rejected  by  the 
Church  as  doubtful  or  as  spurious.  In  the  second  place, 
some  of  the  books  in  the  accepted  canon  are  regarded  as 
of  doubtful  origin.  In  the  third  place,  certain  passages 
of  the  Gospels  have  been  relegated  to  the  margin  by  the 
translators  of  the  Revised  Version  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. In  the  fourth  place,  certain  historic  Christian 
evidence  —  as  the  famous  interpolation  in  Josephus,  for 
instance  —  has  been  branded  as  forgeries  by  eminent 
Christian  scholars. 

Many  of  the  Christian  fathers  were  holy  men,  many 
priests  have  been,  and  are,  honorable  and  sincere;  but  it 
is  notorious  that  in  every  Church  the  world  has  ever 
known  there  has  been  a  great  deal  of  fraud  and  forgery 
and  deceit.  I  do  not  say  this  with  any  bitterness,  I  do 
not  wish  to  emphasize  it ;  but  I  must  go  so  far  as  to  show 
that  the  conduct  of  some  of  the  early  Christians  was  of  a 

135 


(136  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

character  to  justify  us  in  believing  that  the  Scriptures 
have  been  seriously  tampered  with. 
Mosheim,  writing  on  this  subject,  says : 

A  pernicious  maxim  which  was  current  in  the  schools,  not 
only  of  the  Egyptians,  the  Platonists,  and  the  Pythagoreans,  but 
also  of  the  Jews,  was  very  early  recognized  by  the  Christians, 
and  soon  found  among  them  numerous  patrons  —  namely,  that 
those  who  made  it  their  business  to  deceive,  with  a  view  of  pro- 
moting the  cause  of  truth,  were  deserving  rather  of  commenda- 
tion than  of  censure. 

And  if  we  seek  internal  evidence  in  support  of  this 
charge  we  need  go  no  further  than  St.  Paul,  who  is  re- 
ported (Rom.  iii.  7)  as  saying:  "For  if  the  truth  of 
God  hath  more  abounded  through  my  lie  unto  His  glory, 
why  yet  am  I  also  judged  as  a  sinner?"  I  do  not  for  a 
moment  suppose  that  Paul  ever  wrote  those  words.  But 
they  are  given  as  his  in  the  Epistle  bearing  his  name.  I 
daresay  they  may  be  interpreted  in  more  than  one  way: 
my  point  is  that  they  were  interpreted  in  an  evil  way  by 
many  primitive  Christians,  who  took  them  as  a  warranty 
that  it  was  right  to  lie  for  the  glory  of  God. 

Mosheim,  writing  of  the  Church  of  the  fifth  century, 
alludes  to  the 

Base  audacity  of  those  who  did  not  blush  to  palm  their  own 
spurious  productions  on  the  great  men  of  former  times,  and 
even  on  Christ  Himself  and  His  apostles,  so  that  they  might  be 
able,  in  the  councils  and  in  their  books,  to  oppose  names  against 
names  and  authorities  against  authorities.  The  whole  Christian 
Church  was,  in  this  century,  overwhelmed  with  these  disgrace- 
ful fictions. 

Dr.  Giles  speaks  still  more  strongly.     He  says: 

But  a  graver  accusation  than  that  of  inaccuracy  or  deficient 
authority  lies  against  the  writings  which  have  come  down  to  us 
from  the  second  century.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  great 
numbers  of  books  were  then  written  with  no  other  view  than 
to  deceive  the  simple-minded  multitude  who  at  that  time  formed 
the  great  bulk  of  the  Christian  community. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  FRAUD  137 

Dean  Milman  says : 

It  was  admitted  and  avowed  that  to  deceive  into  Christianity 
was  so  valuable  a  service  as  to  hallow  deceit  itself. 

Bishop  Fell  says: 

In  the  first  ages  of  the  Church,  so  extensive  was  the  license 
of  forging,  so  credulous  were  the  people  in  believing,  that  the 
evidence  of  transactions  was  grievously  obscured. 

John  E.  Remsburg,  author  of  the  newly  published 
American  book,  The  Bible,  says: 

That  these  admissions  are  true,  that  primitive  Christianity  was 
propagated  chiefly  by  falsehood,  is  tacitly  admitted  by  all  Chris- 
tians. They  characterize  as  forgeries,  or  unworthy  of  credit, 
three-fourths  of  the  early  Christian  writings. 

Mr.  Lecky,  the  historian,  in  his  European  Morals, 
writes  in  the  following  uncompromising  style : 

The  very  large  part  that  must  be  assigned  to  deliberate  for- 
geries in  the  early  apologetic  literature  of  the  Church  we  have 
already  seen;  and  no  impartial  reader  can,  I  think,  investigate 
the  innumerable  grotesque  and  lying  legends  that,  during  the 
whole  course  of  the  Middle  Ages,  were  deliberately  palmed  upon 
mankind  as  undoubted  facts,  can  follow  the  history  of  the  false 
decretals,  and  the  discussions  that  were  connected  with  them, 
or  can  observe  the  complete  and  absolute  incapacity  most  Cath- 
olic historians  have  displayed  of  conceiving  any  good  thing  in 
the  ranks  of  their  opponents,  or  of  stating  with  common  fair- 
ness any  consideration  that  can  tell  against  their  cause,  without 
acknowledging  how  serious  and  how  inveterate  has  been  the 
evil.  It  is  this  which  makes  it  so  unspeakably  repulsive  to  all 
independent  and  impartial  thinkers,  and  has  led  a  great  German 
historian  (Herder)  to  declare,  with  much  bitterness,  that  the 
phrase  "  Christian  veracity "  deserves  to  rank  with  the  phrase 
"  Punic  faith." 

I  could  go  on  quoting  such  passages.  I  could  give 
specific  instances  of  forgery  by  the  dozen,  but  I  do  not 
think  it  necessary.  It  is  sufficient  to  show  that  forgery 
was  common,  and  has  been  always  common,  amongst  all 
kinds  of  priests,  and  that  therefore  we  cannot  accept  the 
Gospels  as  genuine  and  unaltered  documents. 


138  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

Yet  upon  these  documents  rests  the  whole  fabric  of 
Christianity. 

Professor  Huxley  says : 

There  is  no  proof,  nothing  more  than  a  fair  presumption,  that 
any  one  of  the  Gospels  existed,  in  the  state  in  which  we  find  it 
in  the  authorized  version  of  the  Bible,  before  the  second  cen- 
tury, or,  in  other  words,  sixty  or  seventy  years  after  the  events 
recorded.  And  between  that  time  and  the  date  of  the  oldest 
extant  manuscripts  of  the  Gospels  there  is  no  telling  what  addi- 
tions and  alterations  and  interpolations  may  have  been  made. 
It  may  be  said  that  this  is  all  mere  speculation,  but  it  is  a  good 
deal  more.  As  competent  scholars  and  honest  men,  our  revisers 
have  felt  compelled  to  point  out  that  such  things  have  happened 
even  since  the  date  of  the  oldest  known  manuscripts.  The  old- 
est two  copies  of  the  second  Gospel  end  with  the  eighth  verse 
of  the  sixteenth  chapter;  the  remaining  twelve  verses  are  spuri- 
ous, and  it  is  noteworthy  that  the  maker  of  the  addition  has 
not  hesitated  to  introduce  a  speech  in  which  Jesus  promises  His 
disciples  that  "in  My  name  shall  they  cast  out  devils." 

The  other  passage  "rejected  to  the  margin"  is  still  more  in- 
structive. It  is  that  touching  apologue,  with  its  profound  ethical 
sense,  of  the  woman  taken  in  adultery  —  which,  if  internal  evi- 
dence were  an  infallible  guide,  might  well  be  affirmed  to  be  a 
typical  example  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus.  Yet,  say  the  revisers, 
pitilessly,  "  Most  of  the  ancient  authorities  omit  John  vii.  53-viii. 
II."  Now,  let  any  reasonable  man  ask  himself  this  question: 
If,  after  an  approximate  settlement  of  the  canon  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  even  later  than  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries, 
literary  fabricators  had  the  skill  and  the  audacity  to  make  such 
additions  and  interpolations  as  these,  what  may  they  have  done 
when  no  one  had  thought  of  a  canon;  when  oral  tradition,  still 
unfixed,  was  regarded  as  more  valuable  than  such  written  records 
as  may  have  existed  in  the  latter  portion  of  the  first  century? 
Or,  to  take  the  other  alternative,  if  those  who  gradually  settled 
the  canon  did  not  know  of  the  oldest  codices  which  have  come 
down  to  us;  or  if,  knowing  them,  they  rejected  their  authority, 
what  is  to  be  thought  of  their  competency  as  critics  of  the  text? 

Since  alterations  have  been  made  in  the  text  of  Scrip- 
ture we  can  never  be  certain  that  any  particular  text  is 
genuine,  and  this  circumstance  militates  seriously  against 
the  value  of  the  evidence  for  the  Resurrection. 


CHRISTIANITY  BEFORE  CHRIST 

If  the  story  of  Christ's  life  were  true,  we  should  not  ex- 
pect to  find  that  nearly  all  the  principal  events  of  that  life 
had  previously  happened  in  the  lives  of  some  earlier  god 
or  gods,  long  since  acknowledged  to  be  mythical. 

If  the  Gospel  record  were  the  only  record  of  a  god 
coming  upon  earth,  of  a  god  born  of  a  virgin,  of  a  god 
slain  by  men,  that  record  would  seem  to  us  more  plausi- 
ble than  it  will  seem  if  we  discover  proof  that  other  and 
earlier  gods  have  been  fabled  to  have  come  on  earth,  to 
have  been  born  of  virgins,  to  have  lived  and  taught  on 
earth,  and  to  have  been  slain  by  men. 

Because,  if  the  events  related  in  the  Hfe  of  Christ  have 
been  previously  related  as  parts  of  the  lives  of  earlier 
mythical  gods,  we  find  ourselves  confronted  by  the  possi- 
bilities that  what  is  mythical  in  one  narrative  may  be 
mythical  in  another;  that  if  one  god  is  a  myth  another 
god  may  be  a  myth;  that  if  400,ochd,ooo  of  Buddhists 
have  been  deluded,  200,000,000  of  Christians  may  be  de- 
luded; that  if  the  events  of  Christ's  life  were  alleged  to 
have  happened  before  to  another  person,  they  may  have 
been  adopted  from  the  older  story,  and  made  features  of 
the  new. 

If  Christ  was  God  —  the  omnipotent,  eternal,  and  only 
God  —  come  on  earth,  He  would  not  be  likely  to  repeat 
acts,  to  re-act  the  adventures  of  earlier  and  spurious 
gods ;  nor  would  His  divine  teachings  be  mere  shreds  and 
patches  made  up  of  quotations,  paraphrases,  and  repeti- 

139 


140  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

tions  of  earlier  teachings,  uttered  by  mere  mortals,  or 
mere  myths. 

What  are  we  to  think,  then,  when  we  find  that  there 
are  hardly  any  events  in  the  life  of  Christ  which  were 
not,  before  His  birth,  attributed  to  mythical  gods;  that 
there  are  hardly  any  acts  of  Christ's  which  may  not  be 
paralleled  by  acts  attributed  to  mythical  gods  before  His 
advent ;  that  there  are  hardly  any  important  thoughts  at- 
tributed to  Christ  which  had  not  been  uttered  by  other 
men,  or  by  mythical  gods,  in  earlier  times?  What  are 
we  to  think  if  the  facts  be  thus? 

Mr.  Parsons,  in  Our  Sun  God,  quotes  the  following 
passage  from  a  Latin  work  by  St.  Augustine : 

Again,  in  that  I  said,  "  This  is  in  our  time  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, which  to  know  and  also  follow  is  most  sure  and  certain 
salvation,"  it  is  affirmed  in  regard  to  this  name,  not  in  regard 
to  the  sacred  thing  itself  to  which  the  name  belongs.  For  the 
sacred  thing  which  is  now  called  the  Christian  religion  existed 
in  ancient  times,  nor,  indeed,  was  it  absent  from  the  beginning 
of  the  human  race  until  the  Christ  Himself  came  in  the  flesh, 
whence  the  true  religion,  which  already  existed,  came  to  be 
called  "the  Christian."  So  when,  after  His  resurrection  and 
ascension  to  heaven,  the  Apostles  began  to  preach  and  many  be- 
lieved, it  is  thus  written,  "  The  followers  were  first  called  Chris- 
tians at  Antioch."  Therefore  I  said,  "This  is  in  our  time  the 
Christian  rehgion,"  not  because  it  did  not  exist  in  earlier  times, 
but  as  having  in  later  times  received  this  particular  name. 

From  Eusebius,  the  great  Christian  historian,  Mr.  Par- 
sons quotes  as  follows : 

What  is  called  the  Christian  religion  is  neither  new  nor 
strange,  but  —  if  it  he  lawful  to  testify  as  to  the  truth  —  was 
known  to  the  ancients. 

Mr.  Arthur  Lillie,  in  Buddha  and  Buddhism,  quotes 
M.  Burnouf  as  saying: 

History  and  comparative  mythology  are  teaching  every  day 
more  plainly  that  creeds  grow  slowly  up.  None  came  into  the 
world  ready-made,  and  as  if  by  magic.  The  origin  of  events  is 
lost  in  the  infinite.    A  great  Indian  poet  has  said:    "The  be- 


CHRISTIANITY  BEFORE  CHRIST        141 

ginning  of  things  evades  us;  their  end  evades  us  also;  we  see 
only  the  middle." 

Before  Darwin's  day  it  was  considered  absurd  and  im- 
pious to  talk  of  "  pre-Adamite  man,"  and  it  will  still,  by- 
many,  be  held  absurd  and  impious  to  talk  of  "  Chris- 
tianity before  Christ." 

And  yet  the  incidents  of  the  life  and  death  of  Christ, 
the  teachings  of  Christ  and  His  Apostles,  and  the  rites 
and  mysteries  of  the  Christian  Church  can  all  be  paral- 
leled by  similar  incidents,  ethics,  and  ceremonies  em- 
bodied in  religions  long  anterior  to  the  birth  of  Jesus. 

Christ  is  said  to  have  been  God  come  down  upon  the 
earth.  The  idea  of  a  god  coming  down  upon  the  earth 
was  quite  an  old  and  popular  idea  at  the  time  when  the 
Gospels  were  written.  In  the  Old  Testament  God  makes 
many  visits  to  the  earth ;  and  the  instances  in  the  Greek, 
Roman,  and  Egyptian  mythologies  of  gods  coming 
amongst  men  and  taking  part  in  human  affairs  are  well 
known. 

Christ  is  said  to  have  been  the  Son  of  God.  But  the 
idea  of  a  son-god  is  very  much  older  than  the  Christian 
religion. 

Christ  is  said  to  have  been  a  redeemer,  and  to  have 
descended  from  a  line  of  kings.  But  the  idea  of  a  king's 
son  as  a  redeemer  is  very  much  older  than  the  Christian 
religion. 

Christ  is  said  to  have  been  born  of  a  virgin.  But 
many  heroes  before  Him  were  declared  to  have  been 
born  of  virgins. 

Christ  is  said  to  have  been  born  in  a  cave  or  stable 
while  His  parents  were  on  a  journey.  But  this  also  was 
an  old  legend  long  before  the  Christian  religion. 

Christ  is  said  to  have  been  crucified.    But  very  many 


142  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

kings,  kings'  sons,  son-gods,  and  heroes  had  been  crucified 
ages  before  Him. 

Christ  is  said  to  have  been  a  sacrifice  offered  up  for  the 
salvation  of  man.  But  thousands  and  thousands  of  men 
before  Him  had  been  slain  as  sacrifices  for  the  general 
good,  or  as  atonements  for  general  or  particular  sins. 

Christ  is  said  to  have  risen  from  the  dead.  But  that 
had  been  said  of  other  gods  before  Him. 

Christ  is  said  to  have  ascended  into  Heaven.  But  this 
also  was  a  very  old  idea. 

Christ  is  said  to  have  worked  miracles.  But  all  the 
gods  and  saints  of  all  the  older  religions  were  said  to 
liave  worked  miracles. 

Christ  is  said  to  have  brought  to  men,  direct  from 
Heaven,  a  new  message  of  salvation.  But  the  message  He 
brought  was  in  nowise  new. 

Christ  is  said  to  have  preached  a  new  ethic  of  mercy 
and  peace  and  good-will  to  all  men.  But  this  ethic  had 
been  preached  centuries  before  His  supposed  advent. 

The  Christians  changed  the  Sabbath  from  Saturday  to 
Sunday.     Sun-day  is  the  day  of  the  Sun  God. 

Christ's  birthday  was  fixed  on  the  25th  of  December. 
But  the  25th  of  December  is  the  day  of  the  Winter 
solstice  —  the  birthday  of  Apollo,  the  Sun  God  —  and 
had  been  from  time  immemorial  the  birthday  of  the  sun 
gods  in  all  religions.  The  Egyptians,  Persians,  Greeks, 
Phoenicians,  and  Teutonic  races  all  kept  the  25th  of  De- 
cember as  the  birthday  of  the  Sun  God. 

The  Christians  departed  from  the  monotheism  of  the 
Jews,  and  made  their  God  a  Trinity.  The  Buddhists 
and  the  Egyptians  had  Holy  Trinities  long  before.  But 
whereas  the  Christian  Trinity  is  unreasonable,  the  older 
idea  of  the  Trinity  was  based  upon  a  perfectly  lucid  and 
natural  conception. 


CHRISTIANITY  BEFORE  CHRIST        143 

Christ  is  supposed  by  many  to  have  first  laid  down  the 
"  Golden  Rule,"  "  Do  unto  others  as  you  would  that  they 
should  do  unto  you."  But  the  Golden  Rule  was  laid 
down  centuries  before  the  Christian  era. 

Two  of  the  most  important  of  the  utterances  attributed 
to  Christ  are  the  Lord's  Prayer  and  the  "  Sermon  on  the 
Mount."  But  there  is  very  strong  evidence  that  the 
Lord's  Prayer  was  used  before  Christ's  time,  and  still 
stronger  evidence  that  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  was  a 
compilation,  and  was  never  uttered  by  Christ  or  any 
other  preacher  in  the  form  in  which  it  is  given  by  St. 
Matthew. 

Christ  is  said  to  have  been  tempted  of  the  Devil.  But 
apart  from  the  utter  absurdity  of  the  Devil's  tempting 
God  by  offering  Him  the  sovereignty  of  the  earth  — 
when  God  had  already  the  sovereignty  of  twenty  mil- 
lions of  suns  —  it  is  related  of  Buddha  that  he  also  was 
tempted  of  the  Devil  centuries  before  Christ  was  born. 

The  idea  that  one  man  should  die  as  a  sacrifice  to  the 
gods  on  behalf  of  many,  the  idea  that  the  god  should  be 
slain  for  the  good  of  men,  the  idea  that  the  blood  of  the 
human  or  animal  "  scapegoat "  had  power  to  purify  or  to 
save,  the  idea  that  a  king  or  a  king's  son  should  expiate 
the  sins  of  a  tribe  by  his  death,  and  the  idea  that  a  god 
should  offer  himself  as  a  sacrifice  to  himself  in  atone- 
ment for  the  sins  of  his  people  —  all  these  were  old 
ideas,  and  ideas  well  known  to  the  founders  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

The  resemblances  of  the  legendary  lives  of  Christ  and 
Buddha  are  surprising:  so  also  are  the  resemblances  of 
forms  and  ethics  of  the  ancient  Buddhists  and  the  early 
Christians. 

Mr.  Arthur  Lillie,  in  Buddha  and  Buddhism,  makes  the 
following  quotation  from  M.  Leonde  Rosny : 


144  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

The  astonishing  points  of  contact  between  the  popular  legend 
of  Buddha  and  that  of  Christ,  the  almost  absolute  similarity  of 
the  moral  lessons  given  to  the  world  between  these  two  peerless 
teachers  of  the  human  race,  the  striking  affinities  between  the 
customs  of  the  Buddhists  and  the  Essenes,  of  whom  Christ  must 
have  been  a  disciple,  suggest  at  once  an  Indian  origin  to  Primi- 
tive Christianity. 

Mr.  Lillie  goes  on  to  say  that  there  was  a  sect  of  Es- 
senes in  Palestine  fifty  years  B.C.,  and  that  fifty  years 
after  the  death  of  Christ  there  existed  in  Palestine  a 
similar  sect,  from  whom  Christianity  was  derived.  Mr. 
Lillie  says  of  these  sects : 

Each  had  two  prominent  rites:  baptism,  and  what  Tertullian 
calls  the  "oblation  of  bread."  Each  had  for  officers,  deacons, 
presbyters,  ephemerents.  Each  sect  had  monks,  nuns,  celibacy, 
community  of  goods.  Each  interpreted  the  Old  Testament  in  a 
mystical  way  — so  mystical,  in  fact,  that  it  enabled  each  to  dis- 
cover that  the  bloody  sacrifice  of  Mosaism  was  forbidden,  not 
enjoined.  The  most  minute  likenesses  have  been  pointed  out 
between  these  two  sects  by  all  Catholic  writers  from  Eusebius 
to  the  poet  Racine.  .  .  .  Was  there  any  connection  between 
these  two  sects?  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  that  there  can  be  two 
answers  to  such  a  question. 

The  resemblances  between  Buddhism  and  Christianity 
were  accounted  for  by  the  Christian  Fathers  very  simply. 
The  Buddhists  had  been  instructed  by  the  Devil,  and 
there  was  no  more  to  be  said.  Later  Christian  scholars 
face  the  difficulty  by  declaring  that  the  Buddhists  copied 
from  the  Christians. 

Reminded  that  Buddha  lived  five  hundred  years  before 
Christ,  and  that  the  Buddhist  religion  was  in  its  prime 
two  hundred  years  before  Christ,  the  Christian  apologist 
replies  that,  for  all  that,  the  Buddhist  Scriptures  are  of 
comparatively  late  date.  Let  us  see  how  the  matter 
stands. 

The  resemblances  of  the  two  religions  are  of  two 
kinds.  There  is,  first,  the  resemblance  between  the 
Christian  life  of  Christ  and  the  Indian  life  of  Buddha; 


CHRISTIANITY  BEFORE  CHRIST        145 

and  there  is,  secondly,  the  resemblance  between  the  moral 
teachings  of  Christ  and  Buddha. 

Now,  if  the  Indian  Scriptures  are  of  later  date  than 
the  Gospels,  it  is  just  possible  that  the  Buddhists  may 
have  copied  incidents  from  the  life  of  Christ. 

But  it  is  perfectly  certain  that  the  charge  of  borrowing 
cannot  be  brought  against  Augustus  Caesar,  Plato,  and 
the  compilers  of  the  mythologies  of  Egypt  and  Greece 
and  Rome.  And  it  is  as  certain  that  the  Christians  did 
borrow  from  the  Jews  as  that  the  Jews  borrowed  from 
Babylon.  But  a  little  while  ago  all  Christendom  would 
have  denied  the  indebtedness  of  Moses  to  King  Sargon. 

Now,  since  the  Christian  ideas  were  anticipated  by  the 
Babylonians,  the  Egyptians,  the  Romans,  and  the  Greeks, 
why  should  we  suppose  that  they  were  copied  by  the 
Buddhists,  whose  religion  was  triumphant  some  centuries 
before  Christ? 

And,  again,  while  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
Christian  missionaries  in  the  early  centuries  of  the  era 
made  any  appreciable  impression  on  India  or  China, 
there  is  good  reason  to  suppose  that  the  Buddhists,  who 
were  the  first  and  most  successful  of  all  missionaries, 
reached  Egypt  and  Persia  and  Palestine,  and  made  their 
influence  felt. 

I  now  turn  to  the  statement  of  M.  Burnouf,  quoted  by 
Mr.  Lillie.  M.  Burnouf  asserts  that  the  Indian  origin 
of  Christianity  is  no  longer  contested  : 

It  has  been  placed  in  full  light  by  the  researches  of  scholars, 
and  notably  English  scholars,  and  by  the  publication  of  the 
original  texts.  ...  In  point  of  fact,  for  a  long  time  folks 
had  been  struck  with  the  resemblances  —  or,  rather,  the  identical 
elements  —  contained  in  Christianity  and  Buddhism.  Writers  of 
the  firmest  faith  and  most  sincere  piety  have  admitted  them. 
In  the  last  century  these  analogies  were  set  down  to  the  Nestor- 
ians;  but  since  then  the  science  of  Oriental  chronology  has  come 
into  being,  and  proved  that  Buddha  is  many  years  anterior  to 
Nestorius  and  Jesus.    Thus  the  Nestorian  theory  had  to  be  given 


146  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

up.  But  a  thing  may  be  posterior  to  another  without  proving 
derivation.  So  the  problem  remained  unsolved  until  recently, 
when  the  pathway  that  Buddhism  followed  was  traced  step  by 
step  from  India  to  Jerusalem. 

There  was  baptism  before  Christ,  and  before  John  the 
Baptist.  There  were  gods,  man-gods,  son-gods,  and 
saviours  before  Christ.  There  were  Bibles,  hymns,  tem- 
ples, monasteries,  priests,  monks,  missionaries,  crosses, 
sacraments,  and  mysteries  before  Christ. 

Perhaps  the  most  important  sacrament  of  the  Christian 
religion  to-day  is  the  Eucharist  or  "  Lord's  Supper." 
But  this  idea  of  the  Eucharist,  or  the  ceremonial  eating  of 
the  god,  has  its  roots  far  back  in  the  prehistoric  days  of 
religious  cannibalism. 

Prehistoric  man  believed  that  if  he  ate  anything  its 
virtue  passed  into  his  physical  system.  Therefore  he  be- 
gan by  devouring  his  gods,  body  and  bones.  Later,  man 
mended  his  manners  so  far  as  to  substitute  animal  for 
human  sacrifice ;  still  later,  he  employed  bread  and  wine 
as  symbolical  substitutes  for  flesh  and  blood.  This  is  the 
origin  and  evolution  of  the  strange  and,  to  many  of  us, 
repulsive  idea  of  eating  the  body  and  drinking  the  blood 
of  Christ. 

Now,  supposing  these  facts  to  be  as  I  have  stated  them 
above,  to  what  conclusion  do  they  point? 

Bear  in  mind  the  statement  of  M.  Burnouf,  that  re- 
ligions are  built  up  slowly  by  a  process  of  adaptation ; 
add  that  to  the  statements  of  Eusebius,  the  great  Chris- 
tian historian,  and  of  St.  Augustine,  the  great  Christian 
Father,  that  the  Christian  religion  is  no  new  thing,  but 
was  known  to  the  ancients ;  and  does  it  not  seem  most 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  Christianity  is  a  religion 
founded  on  ancient  myths  and  legends,  on  ancient  ethics, 
and  on  ancient  allegorical  mysteries  and  metaphysical 
errors  ? 


CHRISTIANITY  BEFORE  CHRIST        147 

To  support  those  statements  with  adequate  evidence  I 
should  have  to  compile  a  book  four  times  as  large  as  the 
present  volume.  As  I  have  not  room  to  state  the  case 
properly,  I  shall  content  myself  v^ith  the  recommendation 
-of  some  books  in  which  the  reader  may  study  the  subject 
for  himself. 

A  list  of  these  books  I  now  subjoin : 

The  Golden  Bough.     Frazer.     Macmillan  &  Co, 
A  Short  History  of  Christianity.     Robertson.     Watts  &  Co. 
The  Evolution  of  the  Idea  of  God.    Grant  Allen.    Ration- 
alist Press  Association. 
Buddha  and  Buddhism.    Lillie.     Clark. 
Our  Sun  God.     Parsons.     Parsons. 
Christianity  and  Mythology.     Robertson.     Watts  &  Co. 
Pagan  Christs.     Robertson.     Watts  &  Co. 
The  Legend  of  Perseus.     Hartland.     Nutt. 
The  Birth  of  Jesus.    Soltau.    Black. 

The  above  are  all  scholarly  and  important  books,  and 
should  be  generally  known. 

For  reasons  given  above  I  claim,  with  regard  to  the 
divinity  and  Resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ: 

That  outside  the  New  Testament  there  is  no  evi- 
dence of  any  value  to  show  that  Christ  ever  lived,  that 
He  ever  taught,  that  He  ever  rose  from  the  dead. 

That  the  evidence  of  the  New  Testament  is  anony- 
mous, is  contradictory,  is  loaded  with  myths  and  mira- 
cles. 

That  the  Gospels  do  not  contain  a  word  of  proof  by 
any  eye-witness  as  to  the  fact  that  Christ  was  really 
dead;  nor  the  statement  of  any  eye-witness  that  He 
was  seen  to  return  to  life  and  quit  His  tomb. 

That  Paul,  who  preached  the  Resurrection  of  Christ, 
did  not  see  Christ  dead,  did  not  see  Him  arise  from 
the  dead,  did  not  see  Him  ascend  into  Heaven. 

That  Paul  nowhere  supports  the  Gospel  accounts  of 
Christ's  life  and  teaching. 


148  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

That  the  Gospels  are  of  mixed  and  doubtful  origin, 
that  they  show  signs  of  interpolation  and  tampering, 
and  that  they  have  been  selected  from  a  number  of 
other  Gospels,  all  of  which  were  once  accepted  as 
genuine. 

And  that,  while  there  is  no  real  evidence  of  life,  or 

the  teachings,  or  the  Resurrection  of  Christ,  there  is 

a  great  deal  of  evidence  to  show  that  the  Gospels  were 

founded  upon  anterior  legends  and  older  ethics. 

But  Christian  apologists  offer  other  reasons  why  we 

should  accept  the  stories  of  the  miraculous  birth  and 

Resurrection  of  Christ  as  true.     Let  us  examine  these 

reasons,  and  see  what  they  amount  to. 


OTHER  EVIDENCES  OF  CHRIST'S  DIVINITY 

Archdeacon  Wilson  gives  two  reasons  for  accepting 
the  doctrines  of  Christ's  divinity  and  Resurrection  as 
true.  The  first  of  these  reasons  is,  the  success  of  the 
Christian  religion;  the  second  is,  the  evolution  of  the 
Christlike  type  of  character. 

If  the  success  of  the  Christian  religion  proves  that 
Christ  was  God,  what  does  the  success  of  the  Buddhist 
religion  prove?  What  does  the  success  of  the  Moham- 
medan religion  prove? 

Was  Budaha  God?    Was  Mahomet  God? 

The  archdeacon  does  not  believe  in  any  miracles  but 
those  of  his  own  religion.  But  if  the  spread  of  a  faith 
proves  its  miracles  to  be  true,  what  can  be  said  about  the 
spread  of  the  Buddhist  and  Mohammedan  religions? 

Islam  spread  faster  and  farther  than  Christianity.  So 
did  Buddhism.  To-day  the  numbers  of  these  religions 
are  somewhat  as  follow : 

Buddhist :  450  millions. 

Christians:  375  millions,  of  which  only  180  millions 
are  Protestants. 

Hindus:  200  millions. 

Mohammedans:  160  millions. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  Buddhist  religion  is  older  than 
Christianity,  and  has  more  followers.  What  does  that 
prove  ? 

But  as  to  the  reasons  for  the  great  growth  of  these  two 
religions  I  will  say  more  by  and  by.  At  present  I  merely 
repeat  that  the  Buddhist  faith  owed  a  great  deal  to  the 


150  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

fact  that  King  Asoka  made  it  the  State  reHgion  of  a 
great  kingdom,  and  that  Christianity  owes  a  great  deal 
to  the  fact  that  Constantine  adopted  it  as  the  State  re- 
Hgion of  the  Roman  Empire. 

We  come  now  to  the  archdeacon's  second  argument: 
that  the  divinity  of  Christ  is  proved  by  the  evolution  of 
the  Christlike  type  of  character. 

And  here  the  archdeacon  makes  a  most  surprising 
statement,  for  he  says  that  type  of  character  was  un- 
known on  this  globe  until  Christ  came. 

Then  how  are  we  to  account  for  King  Asoka? 

The  King  Asoka  of  the  Rock  Edicts  was  as  spiritual, 
as  gentle,  as  pure,  and  as  loving  as  the  Christ  of  the  Gos- 
pels. 

The  King  Asoka  of  the  Rock  Edicts  was  wiser,  more 
tolerant,  more  humane  than  the  Christ  of  the  Gospels. 

Nowhere  did  Christ  or  the  Fathers  of  His  Church  for- 
bid slavery;  nowhere  did  they  forbid  religious  intoler- 
ance; nowhere  did  they  forbid  cruelty  to  animals. 

The  type  of  character  displayed  by  the  rock  inscriptions 
of  King  Asoka  was  a  higher  and  sweeter  type  than  the 
type  of  character  displayed  by  the  Jesus  of  the  Gospels. 

Does  this  prove  that  King  Asoka  or  his  teacher,  Bud- 
dha, was  divine?  Does  it  prove  that  the  Buddhist  faith 
is  the  only  true  faith?  I  shall  treat  this  question  more 
fully  in  another  chapter. 

Another  Christian  argument  Is  the  claim  that  the  faith- 
fulness of  the  Christian  martyrs  proves  Christianity  to  be 
true.  A  most  amazing  argument.  The  fact  that  a  man 
dies  for  a  faith  does  not  prove  the  faith  to  be  true;  it 
proves  that  he  believes  it  to  be  true  —  a  very  different 
thing. 

The  Jews  denied  the  Christian  faith,  and  died  for  their 


EVIDENCES  OF  CHRIST'S  DIVINITY      151 

own.  Does  that  prove  that  Christianity  was  not  true? 
Did  the  Protestant  martyrs  prove  Protestantism  true? 
Then  the  CathoHc  martyrs  proved  the  reverse. 

The  Christians  martyred  or  murdered  milHons,  many 
milHons,  of  innocent  men  and  v^omen.  Does  that  prove 
that  Christ  was  divine?  No:  it  only  proves  that  Chris- 
tians could  be  fanatical,  intolerant,  bloody,  and  cruel. 

And  now,  will  you  ponder  these  words  of  Arthur  Lillie, 
M.  A.,  the  author  of  Buddha  and  Buddhism f  Speaking 
of  the  astonishing  success  of  the  Buddhist  missionaries, 
Mr.  Lillie  says : 

This  success  was  effected  by  moral  means  alone,  for  Buddhism 

is  the  one  religion  guiltless  of  coercion. 

Christians  are  always  boasting  of  the  wonderful  good 
works  wrought  by  their  religion.  They  are  silent  about 
the  horrors,  infamies,  and  shames  of  which  it  has  been 
guilty. 

Buddhism  is  the  only  religion  with  no  blood  upon  its 
hands.  I  submit  another  very  significant  quotation  from 
Mn  Lillie: 

I  will  write  down  a  few  of  the  achievements  of  this  inactive 
Buddha  and  the  army  of  Bhikshus  that  he  directed : 

1.  The  most  formidable  priestly  tyranny  that  the  world  had 
ever  seen  crumbled  away  before  his  attack,  and  the  followers  of 
Buddha  were  paramount  in  India  for  a  thousand  years. 

2.  The  institution  of  caste  was  assailed  and  overthrown. 

3.  Polygamy  was  for  the  first  time  assailed  and  overturned. 

4.  Woman,  from  being  considered  a  chattel  and  a  beast  of 
burden,  was  for  the  first  time  considered  man's  equal,  and  al- 
lowed to  develop  her  spiritual  life. 

5.  All  bloodshed,  whether  with  the  knife  of  the  priest  or  the 
sword  of  the  conqueror,  was  rigidly  forbidden. 

6.  Also,  for  the  first  time  in  the  religious  history  of  mankind, 
the  awakening  of  the  spiritual  life  of  the  individual  was  sub- 
stituted for  religion  by  body  corporate. 

7.  The  principle  of  religious  propagandism  was  for  the  first 
time  introduced  with  its  two  great  instruments,  the  missionary 
and  the  preacher. 


152  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

To  that  list  we  may  add  that  Buddhism  abolished 
slavery  and  religious  persecution;  taught  temperance, 
chastity,  and  humanity ;  and  invented  the  higher  morality 
and  the  idea  of  the  brotherhood  of  the  entire  human  race. 

What  does  that  prove?  It  seems  to  me  to  prove  that 
Archdeacon  Wilson  is  mistaken. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION 


WHATJS  CHRISTIANITY? 

What  is  Christianity  ?  When  I  began  to  discuss  religion 
in  the  Clarion  I  thought  I  knew  what  Christianity  was. 
I  thought  it  was  the  reHgion  I  had  been  taught  as  a  boy 
in  Church  of  England  and  Congregationalist  Sunday 
schools.  But  since  then  I  have  read  many  books,  and 
pamphlets,  and  sermons  and  articles  intended  to  explain 
what  Christianity  is,  and  I  begin  to  think  there  are  as 
many  kinds  of  Christianity  as  there  are  Christians.  The 
differences  are  numerous  and  profound:  they  are  aston- 
ishing. That  must  be  a  strange  revelation  of  God  which 
can  be  so  differently  interpreted. 

Well,  I  cannot  describe  all  these  variants,  nor  can  I 
reduce  them  to  a  common  denominator.  The  most  I  can 
pretend  to  offer  is  a  selection  of  some  few  doctrines  to 
which  all  or  many  Christians  would  subscribe. 

1.  All  Christians  believe  in  a  Supreme  Being,  called 
God,  who  created  all  beings.  They  all  believe  that  He 
is  a  good  and  loving  God,  and  our  Heavenly  Father. 

2.  Most  Christians  believe  in  Free  Will. 

3.  All  Christians  believe  that  Man  has  sinned  and  does 
sin  against  God. 

4.  All  Christians  beHeve  that  Jesus  Christ  is  in  some 
way  necessary  to  Man's  "  salvation,"  and  that  without 
Christ  Man  will  be  ''  lost." 

But  when  we  ask  for  the  meaning  of  the  terms  "  salva- 
tion "  and  "  lost "  the  Christians  give  conflicting  or  di- 
vergent answers. 

5.  All  Christians  believe  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 

155 


156  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

And  I  think  they  all,  or  nearly  all,  believe  in  some  kind 
of  future  punishment  or  reward. 

6.  Most  Christians  believe  that  Christ  was  God. 

7.  Most  Christians  believe  that  after  crucifixion  Christ 
rose  from  the  dead  and  ascended  into  Heaven. 

8.  Most  Christians  believe,  or  think  they  believe,  in  the 
efficacy  of  prayer. 

9.  Most  Christians  .believe  in  a  Devil ;  but  he  is  a  great 
many  different  kinds  of  a  Devil. 

Of  these  beliefs  I  should  say : 

I.  As  to  God.  If  there  is  no  God,  or  if  God  is  not  a 
loving  Heavenly  Father,  who  answers  prayer,  Christian- 
ity as  a  religion  cannot  stand. 

1  do  not  pretend  to  say  whether  there  is  or  is  not  a 
God,  but  I  deny  that  there  is  a  loving  Heavenly  Father 
who  answers  prayer. 

2  and  3.  If  there  is  no  such  thing  as  Free  Will  man 
could  not  sin  against  God,  and  Christianity  as  a  religion 
will  not  stand. 

I  deny  the  existence  of  Free  Will,  and  possibility  of 
man's  sinning  against  God. 

4.  If  Jesus  Christ  is  not  necessary  to  Man's  "  salva- 
tion," Christianity  as  a  religion  will  not  stand. 

I  deny  that  Christ  is  necessary  to  man's  salvation  from 
Hell  or  from  Sin. 

5.  I  do  not  assert  or  deny  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
I  know  nothing  about  the  soul,  and  no  man  is  or  ever 
was  able  to  tell  me  more  than  I  know. 

Of  the  remaining  four  doctrines  I  will  speak  in  due 
course. 

I  spoke  just  now  of  the  religion  I  was  taught  in  my 
boyhood,  some  forty  years  ago.  As  that  religion  seems 
to  be  still  very  popular  I  will  try  to  express  it  as  briefly 
as  I  can. 


WHAT  IS  CHRISTIANITY?  157 

Adam  was  the  first  man,  and  the  father  of  the  human 
race.  He  was  created  by  God,  in  the  likeness  of  God: 
that  is  to  say,  he  was  made  "  perfect." 

But,  being  tempted  of  the  Devil,  Adam  sinned :  he  fell. 
Gad  was  so  angry  with  Adam  for  his  sin  that  He  con- 
demned him  and  all  his  descendants  for  five  thousand 
years  to  a  Hell  of  everlasting  fire. 

After  consigning  all  the  generations  of  men  for  five 
thousand  years  to  horrible  torment  in  Hell,  God  sent  His 
Son,  Jesus  Christ,  down  on  earth  to  die,  and  to  go  to 
Hell  for  three  days,  as  an  atonement  for  the  sin  of  Adam. 

After  Christ  rose  from  the  dead  all  who  believed  on 
Him  and  were  baptized  would  go  to  Heaven.  All  who 
did  not  believe  on  Him,  or  were  not  baptized,  would  go 
to  Hell,  and  burn  forever  in  a  lake  of  fire. 

That  is  what  we  were  taught  in  our  youth ;  and  that  is 
what  millions  of  Christians  believe  to-day.  That  is  the 
old  religion  of  the  Fall,  of  ''  Inherited  Sin,''  of  "  Uni- 
versal Damnation,"  and  of  atonement  by  the  blood  of 
Christ. 

There  is  a  new  religion  now,  which  shuts  out  Adam 
and  Eve,  and  the  serpent,  and  the  hell  of  fire,  but  retains 
the  "  Fall,"  the  "  Sin  against  God,"  and  the  "  Atonement 
by  Christ." 

But  in  the  new  Atonement,  as  I  understand,  or  try  to 
understand  it,  Christ  is  said  to  be  God  Himself,  come 
down  to  win  back  to  Himself  Man,  who  had  estranged 
himself  from  God,  or  else  God  (as  Christ)  died  to  save 
man,  not  from  Hell,  but  from  Sin. 

All  these  theories,  old  and  new,  seem  to  me  impos- 
sible. 

I  will  deal  first,  in  a  short  way,  with  the  new  theories 
of  the  Atonement. 

If  Christ  died  to  save  Man  from  sin,  how  is  it  that 


158  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

nineteen  centuries  after  His  death  the  world  is  full  of 
sin? 

If  God  (the  All-powerful  God,  who  loves  us  better  than 
an  earthly  father  loves  his  children)  wished  to  forgive  us 
the  sin  Adam  committed  ages  before  we  were  born,  why 
did  He  not  forgive  us  without  dying,  or  causing  His  Son 
to  die,  on  a  cross  ? 

If  Christ  is  essential  to  a  good  life  on  earth,  how  is  it 
that  many  who  believe  in  Him  lead  bad  lives,  while  many 
of  the  best  men  and  women  of  this  and  former  ages 
either  never  heard  of  Christ  or  did  not  follow  Him? 

As  to  the  theory  that  Christ  (or  God)  died  to  win 
back  Man  to  Himself,  it  does  not  harmonize  with  the 
facts. 

Man  never  did  estrange  himself  from  God.  All  his- 
tory shows  that  Man  has  persistently  and  anxiously 
sought  for  God,  and  has  served  Him,  according  to  his 
light,  with  a  blind  devotion,  even  to  death  and  crime. 

Finally,  Man  never  did,  and  never  could,  sin  against 
God.  For  Man  is  what  God  made  him;  could  only  act 
as  God  enabled  him,  or  constructed  him  to  act,  and  there- 
fore was  not  responsible  for  his  act,  and  could  not  sin 
against  God. 

If  God  is  responsible  for  Man's  existence,  God  is  re- 
sponsible for  Man's  act.  Therefore  Man  cannot  sin 
against  God. 

But  I  shall  deal  more  fully  with  the  subject  of  Free 
Will,  and  of  the  need  for  Christ  as  our  Saviour,  in  an- 
other part  of  this  book. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  old  idea  of  the  Fall  and  the 
Atonement. 

First,  as  to  Adam  and  the  Fall  and  inherited  sin. 
Evolution,    historical    research,   and    scientific   criticism 


WHAT  IS  CHRISTIANITY?  159 

have  disposed  of  Adam.  Adam  was  a  myth.  Hardly 
any  educated  Christians  now  regard  him  as  an  historic 
person. 

But  —  no  Adam,  no  Fall;  no  Fall,  no  Atonement;  no 
Atonement,  no  Saviour.  Accepting  Evolution,  how  can 
we  believe  in  a  Fall?  When  did  man  fall?  Was  it 
before  he  ceased  to  be  a  monkey,  or  after  ?  Was  it  when 
he  was  a  tree  man,  or  later  ?  Was  it  in  the  Stone  Age, 
or  the  Bronze  Age,  or  in  the  Age  of  Iron  ? 

There  never  was  any  "  Fall."  Evolution  proves  a 
long,  slow  rise. 

And  if  there  never  was  a  Fall,  why  should  there  be  any 
Atonement  ? 

Christians  accepting  the  theory  of  evolution  have  to 
believe  that  God  allowed  the  sun  to  form  out  of  the 
nebula,  and  the  earth  to  form  from  the  sun.  That  He 
allowed  man  to  develop  slowly  from  the  speck  of  proto- 
plasm in  the  sea.  That  at  some  period  of  man's  gradual 
evolution  from  the  brute,  Gk)d  found  man  guilty  of  some 
sin,  and  cursed  him.  That  some  thousands  of  years  later 
God  sent  His  only  Son  down  upon  the  earth  to  save  man 
from  Hell. 

But  Evolution  shows  man  to  be,  even  now,  an  imper- 
fect creature,  an  unfinished  work,  a  building  still  under- 
going alterations,  an  animal  still  evolving. 

Whereas  the  doctrines  of  "  the  Fall "  and  the  Atone- 
ment assume  that  he  was  from  the  first  a  finished  crea- 
ture, and  responsible  to  God  for  his  actions. 

This  old  doctrine  of  the  Fall,  and  the  Curse,  and  the 
Atonement  is  against  reason  as  well  as  against  science. 

The  universe  is  boundless.  We  know  it  to  contain 
millions  of  suns,  and  suppose  it  to  contain  millions  of 
millions  of  suns.  Our  sun  is  but  a  speck  in  the  universe. 
Our  earth  is  but  a  speck  in  the  solar  system. 


i6o  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

Are  we  to  believe  that  the  God  who  created  all  this 
boundless  universe  got  so  angry  with  the  children  of  the 
apes  that  He  condemned  them  all  to  Hell  for  two  score 
centuries,  and  then  could  only  appease  His  rage  by  send- 
ing His  own  Son  to  be  nailed  upon  a  cross?  Do  you 
believe  that?     Can  you  believe  it? 

No.  As  I  said  before,  if  the  theory  of  evolution  be 
true,  there  was  nothing  to  atone  for,  and  nobody  to  atone. 
Man  has  never  sinned  against  God.  In  fact,  the  whole 
of  this  old  Christian  doctrine  is  a  mass  of  error.  There 
was  no  creation.  There  was  no  Fall.  There  was  no 
Atonement.  There  was  no  Adam,  and  no  Eve,  and  no 
Eden,  and  no  Devil,  and  no  Hell. 

If  God  is  all-powerful.  He  had  power  to  make  man  by 
nature  incapable  of  sin.  But  if,  having  the  power  to 
make  man  incapable  of  sin,  God  made  man  so  weak  as 
to  "  fall,"  then  it  was  God  who  sinned  against  man,  and 
not  man  against  God. 

For  if  I  had  power  to  train  a  son  of  mine  to  righteous- 
ness, and  I  trained  him  to  wickedness,  should  I  not  sin 
against  my  son? 

Or  if  a  man  had  power  to  create  a  child  of  virtue  and 
intellect,  but  chose  rather  to  create  a  child  who  was  by 
nature  a  criminal  or  an  idiot,  would  not  that  man  sin 
against  his  child? 

And  do  you  believe  that  "  our  Father  In  Heaven,  our 
All-powerful  God,  who  is  Love,"  would  first  create  man 
fallible,  and  then  punish  him  for  falling? 

And  if  He  did  so  create  and  so  punish  man,  could  you 
call  that  just  or  merciful? 

And  if  God  is  our  "  maker,"  who  but  He  is  responsible 
for  our  make-up? 

And  if  He  alone  is  responsible,  how  can  man  have 
sinned  against  God? 


WHAT  IS  CHRISTIANITY?  i6l 

I  maintain  that  besides  being  unhistorical  and  unrea- 
sonable, the  old  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  is  unjust  and 
immoral. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  is  not  just  nor  moral, 
because  it  implies  that  man  should  not  be  punished  or 
rewarded  according  to  his  own  merits  or  demerit,  but 
according  to  the  merit  of  another. 

Is  it  just,  or  is  it  moral,  to  make  the  good  suffer  for 
the  bad?  Is  it  just  or  moral  to  forgive  one  man  his 
sin  because  another  is  sinless?  Such  a  doctrine  —  the 
doctrine  of  Salvation  for  Christ's  sake,  and  after  a  life  of 
crime  —  holds  out  inducements  to  sin. 

Repentance  is  only  good  because  it  is  the  precursor 
of  reform.  But  no  repentance  can  merit  pardon,  nor 
atone  for  wrong.  If,  having  done  wrong,  I  repent,  and 
afterwards  do  right,  that  is  good.  But  to  be  sorry  and 
not  to  reform  is  not  good. 

If  I  do  wrong,  my  repentance  will  not  cancel  that 
wrong.  An  act  performed  is  performed  for  ever.  If  I 
cut  a  man's  hand  off,  I  may  repent,  and  he  may  pardon 
me.  But  neither  my  remorse  nor  his  forgiveness  will 
make  the  hand  grow  again.  And  if  the  hand  could  grow 
again,  the  wrong  I  did  would  still  have  been  done. 

That  is  a  stern  morality,  but  it  is  moral.  Your  doc- 
trine of  pardon  "  for  Christ's  sake  "  is  not  moral.  God 
acts  unjustly  when  He  pardons  for  Christ's  sake.  Christ 
acts  unjustly  when  He  asks  that  pardon  be  granted  for 
His  sake.  If  one  man  injures  another,  the  prerogative  of 
pardon  should  belong  to  the  injured  man.  It  is  for  him 
who  suffers  to  forgive. 

If  your  son  injure  your  daughter,  the  pardon  must 
come  from  her.  It  would  not  be  just  for  you  to  say: 
*'  He  has  wronged  you,  and  has  made  no  atonement,  but 
I  forgive  him."     Nor  would  it  be  just  for  you  to  forgive 


i62  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

him  because  another  son  of  yours  was  willing  to  be  pun- 
ished in  his  stead.  Nor  would  it  be  just  for  that  other 
son  to  come  forward,  and  say  to  you,  and  not  to  his  in- 
jured sister,  "  Father,  forgive  him  for  my  sake." 

He  who  wrongs  a  fellow-creature,  wrongs  himself  as 
well,  and  wrongs  both  for  all  eternity.  Let  this  awful 
thought  keep  us  just.  It  is  more  moral  and  more  correc- 
tive than  any  trust  in  the  vicarious  atonement  of  a 
Saviour. 

Christ's  Atonement,  or  any  other  person's  atonement, 
cannot  justly  be  accepted.  For  the  fact  that  Christ  is 
willing  to  suffer  for  another  man's  sin  only  counts  to  the 
merit  of  Christ,  and  does  not  in  any  way  diminish  the 
offense  of  the  sinner.  If  I  am  bad,  does  it  make  my 
offense  the  less  that  another  man  is  so  much  better? 

If  a  just  man  had  two  servants,  and  one  of  them  did 
wrong,  and  if  the  other  offered  to  endure  a  flogging  in 
expiation  of  his  fault,  what  would  the  just  man  do? 

To  flog  John  for  the  fault  of  James  would  be  to  punish 
John  for  being  better  than  James.  To  forgive  James 
because  John  had  been  unjustly  flogged  would  be  to  as- 
sert that  because  John  was  good,  and  because  the  master 
had  acted  unjustly,  James  the  guilty  deserved  to  be  for- 
given. 

This  is  not  only  contrary  to  reason  and  to  justice:  it  is 
also  very  false  sentiment. 


DETERMINISM 


CAN  MAN  SIN  AGAINST  GOD? 

I  HAVE  said  several  times  that  Man  could  not  and  cannot 
sin  against  God. 

This  is  the  theory  of  Determinism,  and  I  will  now  ex- 
plain it. 

//  God  is  responsible  for  Man's  existence,  God  is  re- 
sponsible for  Man's  acts. 

The  Christian  says  God  is  our  Maker.  God  made 
Man. 

Who  is  responsible  for  the  quality  or  powers  of  a  thing 
that  is  made? 

The  thing  that  is  made  cannot  be  responsible,  for  it  did 
not  make  itself.  But  the  maker  is  responsible,  for  he 
made  it. 

As  Man  did  not  make  himself,  and  had  neither  act,  nor 
voice,  nor  suggestion,  nor  choice  in  the  creation  of  his 
own  nature,  Man  cannot  be  held  answerable  for  the  qual- 
ities or  powers  of  his  nature,  and  therefore  cannot  be 
held  responsible  for  his  acts. 

If  God  made  Man,  God  is  responsible  for  the  qualities 
and  powers  of  Man's  nature,  and  therefore  God  is  re- 
sponsible for  Man's  acts. 

Christian  theology  is  built  upon  the  sandy  foundation 
of  the  doctrine  of  Free  Will.  The  Christian  theory  may 
be  thus  expressed : 

God  gave  Man  a  will  to  choose.  Man  chose  evil, 
therefore  Man  is  wicked,  and  deserves  punishment. 

The  Christian  says  God  gave  Man  a  will.     The  will, 

i6S 


i66  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

then,  came  from  God,  and  was  not  made  nor  selected  by 
man. 

And  this  Will,  the  Christian  says,  is  the  ''  power  to 
choose." 

Then,  this  "  power  to  choose  "  is  of  God's  making  and 
of  God's  gift. 

Man  has  only  one  will,  therefore  he  has  only  the 
"  power  of  choice."  Therefore  he  has  no  power  of  choice 
but  the  power  God  gave  him. 

Then,  Man  can  only  choose  by  means  of  that  power 
which  God  gave  him,  and  he  cannot  choose  by  any  other 
means. 

Then,  if  Man  chooses  evil,  he  chooses  evil  by  means 
of  the  power  of  choice  God  gave  him. 

Then,  if  that  power  of  choice  given  to  him  by  God 
makes  for  evil,  it  follows  that  Man  must  choose  evil, 
since  he  has  no  other  power  of  choice. 

Then,  the  only  power  of  choice  God  gave  man  is  a 
power  that  will  choose  evil. 

Then,  man  is  unable  to  choose  good,  because  his  only 
power  of  choice  will  choose  evil. 

Then,  as  man  did  not  make  nor  select  his  power  of 
choice,  man  cannot  be  blamed  if  that  power  chooses  evil. 

Then,  the  blame  must  be  God's,  who  gave  Man  a  power 
of  choice  that  would  choose  evil. 

Then,  Man  cannot  sin  against  God,  for  Man  can  only 
use  the  power  God  gave  him,  and  can  only  use  that  power 
in  the  way  in  which  that  power  will  work. 

The  word  "  will  "  is  a  misleading  word.  What  is  will  ? 
Will  is  not  a  faculty,  like  the  faculty  of  speech  or  touch. 
The  word  will  is  a  symbol,  and  means  the  balance  be- 
tween two  motives  or  desires. 

Will  is  like  the  action  of  balance  in  a  pair  of  scales. 
It  is  the  weights  in  the  scales  that  decide  the  balance. 


CAN  MAN  SIN  AGAINST  GOD?  167 

So  it  is  the  motives  in  the  mind  that  decide  the  will. 
When  a  man  chooses  between  two  acts  we  say  that  he 
••  exercises  his  will " ;  but  the  fact  is,  that  one  motive 
weighs  down  the  other,  and  causes  the  balance  of  the 
mind  to  lean  to  the  weightier  reason.  There  is  no  such 
thing  as  an  exterior  will,  outside  the  man's  brain,  to  push 
one  scale  down  with  a  finger.  Will  is  abstract,  not  con- 
crete. 

A  man  always  "  wills  "  in  favor  of  the  weightier  mo- 
tive. If  he  loves  the  sense  of  intoxication  more  than  he 
loves  his  self-respect,  he  will  drink.  If  the  reasons  in 
favor  of  sobriety  seem  to  him  to  outweigh  the  reasons  in 
favor  of  drink,  he  will  keep  sober. 

Will,  then,  is  a  symbol  for  the  balance  of  motives. 
Motives  are  born  of  the  brain.  Therefore  will  depends 
upon  the  action  of  the  brain. 

God  made  the  brain;  therefore  God  is  responsible  for 
the  action  of  the  brain ;  therefore  God  is  responsible  for 
the  action  of  the  will. 

Therefore  Man  is  not  responsible  for  the  action  of  the 
will.     Therefore  Man  cannot  sin  against  God. 

Christians  speak  of  the  will  as  if  it  were  a  kind  of 
separate  soul,  a  "  little  cherub  who  sits  up  aloft "  and 
gives  the  man  his  course. 

Let  us  accept  this  idea  of  the  will.  Let  us  suppose 
that  a  separate  soul  or  faculty  called  the  Will  governs  the 
mind.  That  means  that  the  ''  little  cherub  "  governs  the 
man. 

Can  the  man  be  justly  blamed  for  the  acts  of  the 
cherub  ? 

No.  Man  did  not  make  the  cherub,  did  not  select  the 
cherub,  and  is  obliged  to  obey  the  cherub. 

God  made  the  cherub,  and  gave  him  command  of  the 
man.     Therefore  God  alone  is  responsible  for  the  acts 


i68  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

the  man  performs  in  obedience  to  the  cherub's  orders. 

If  God  put  a  beggar  on  horseback,  would  the  horse  be 
blamable  for  galloping  to  Monte  Carlo  ?  The  horse  must 
obey  the  rider.  The  rider  was  made  by  God.  How, 
then,  can  God  blame  the  horse  ? 

If  God  put  a  "  will "  on  Adam's  back,  and  the  will 
followed  the  beckoning  finger  of  Eve,  whose  fault  was 
that? 

The  old  Christian  doctrine  was  that  Adam  was  made 
perfect,  and  that  he  fell.  (How  could  the  "perfect" 
fall?) 

Why  did  Adam  fall?  He  fell  because  the  woman 
tempted  him. 

Then,  Adam  was  not  strong  enough  to  resist  the 
woman. 

Then,  the  woman  had  power  to  overcome  Adam's  will. 
As  the  Christian  would  express  it,  "  Eve  had  the  stronger 
will." 

Who  made  Adam  ?  God  made  him.  Who  made  Eve  ? 
God  made  her.  Who  made  the  Serpent?  God  made  the 
Serpent. 

Then,  if  God  made  Adam  weak,  and  Eve  seductive, 
and  the  Serpent  subtle,  was  that  Adam's  fault  or  God's  ? 

Did  Adam  choose  that  Eve  should  have  a  stronger 
will  than  he,  or  that  the  Serpent  should  have  a  stronger 
will  than  Eve?     No.     God  fixed  all  those  things. 

God  is  all-powerful.  He  could  have  made  Adam 
strong  enough  to  resist  Eve.  He  could  have  made  Eve 
strong  enough  to  resist  the  Serpent.  He  need  not  have 
made  the  Serpent  at  all. 

God  is  all-knowing.  Therefore,  when  He  made  Adam 
and  Eve  and  the  Serpent  He  knew  that  Adam  and  Eve 
must  fall.    And  if  God  knew  they  must  fall,  how  could 


CAN  MAN  SIN  AGAINST  GOD?  169 

Adam  help  falling,  and  how  could  he  justly  be  blamed 
for  doing  what  he  must  do? 

God  made  a  bridge  —  built  it  Himself,  of  His  own 
materials,  to  His  own  design,  and  knew  what  the  bearing 
strain  of  the  bridge  was. 

If,  then,  God  put  upon  the  bridge  a  weight  equal  to 
double  the  bearing  strain,  how  could  God  justly  blame 
the  bridge  for  falHng? 

The  doctrine  of  Free  Will  implies  that  God  knowingly 
made  the  Serpent  subtle,  Eve  seductive,  and  Adam  weak, 
and  then  damned  the  whole  human  race  because  a  bridge 
He  had  built  to  fall  did  not  succeed  in  standing. 

Such  a  theory  is  ridiculous;  but  upon  it  depends  the 
entire  fabric  of  Christian  theology. 

For  if  Man  is  not  responsible  for  his  acts,  and  there- 
fore cannot  sin  against  God,  there  is  no  foundation  for 
the  doctrines  of  the  Fall,  the  Sin,  the  Curse,  or  the  Atone- 
ment. 

If  Man  cannot  sin  against  God,  and  if  God  is  responsi- 
ble for  all  Man's  acts,  the  Old  Testament  is  not  true,  the 
New  Testament  is  not  True,  the  Christian  religion  is  not 
true. 

And  if  you  consider  the  numerous  crimes  and  blun- 
ders of  the  Christian  Church,  you  will  always  find  that 
they  grew  out  of  the  theory  of  Free  Will,  and  the  doc- 
trines of  Man's  sin  against  God,  and  Man's  responsibility 
and  *'  wickedness." 

St.  Paul  said,  "  As  in  Adam  all  men  fell,  so  in  Christ 
are  all  made  whole."  If  Adam  did  not  fall  St.  Paul  was 
mistaken. 

Christ  is  reported  to  have  prayed  on  the  cross, 
"Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they 
do." 


170  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

That  looks  as  if  Jesus  knew  that  the  men  were  not  re- 
sponsible for  their  acts,  and  did  not  know  any  better. 
But  if  they  knew  not  what  they  did,  why  should  God  be 
asked  to  forgive  them  ? 

But  let  us  go  over  the  Determinist  theory  again,  for  it 
is  most  important. 

//  God  is  responsible  for  Man's  existence,  God  is  re- 
sponsible for  Man's  acts. 

The  Christians  say  Man  sinned,  and  they  talk  about 
his  freedom  of  choice.  But  they  say  God  made  Man,  as 
He  made  all  things. 

Now,  if  God  is  all-knowing,  He  knew  before  He  made 
Man  what  Man  would  do.  He  knew  that  Man  could  do 
nothing  but  what  God  had  enabled  him  to  do.  That  he 
could  do  nothing  but  what  he  was  fore-ordained  by  God 
to  do. 

If  God  is  all-powerful,  He  need  not  have  made  man  at 
all.  Or  He  could  have  made  a  man  who  would  be  strong 
enough  to  resist  temptation.  Or  he  could  have  made  a 
man  who  was  incapable  of  evil. 

If  the  All-powerful  God  made  a  man,  knowing  that  man 
would  succumb  to  the  test  to  which  God  meant  to  subject 
him,  surely  God  could  not  justly  blame  the  man  for  being 
no  better  than  God  had  made  him. 

If  God  had  never  made  Man,  then  Man  never  could 
have  succumbed  to  temptation.  God  made  Man  of  His 
own  divine  choice,  and  made  him  to  His  own  divine  de- 
sire. 

How,  then,  could  God  blame  Man  for  anything  Man 
did? 

God  was  responsible  for  Man's  existence,  for  God 
made  him.  If  God  had  not  made  him,  Man  could  never 
have  been,  and  could  never  have  acted.  Therefore  all 
that  Man  did  was  the  result  of  God's  creation  of  Man. 


CAN  MAN  SIN  AGAINST  GOD?  171 

All  Man's  acts  were  the  effects  of  which  his  creation 
was  the  cause:  and  God  was  responsible  for  the  cause, 
and  therefore  God  was  responsible  for  the  effects. 

Man  did  not  make  himself.  Man  could  not,  before  he 
existed,  have  asked  God  to  make  him.  Man  could  not 
advise  nor  control  God  so  as  to  influence  his  own  nature. 
Man  could  only  be  what  God  caused  him  to  be,  and  do 
what  God  enabled  or  compelled  him  to  do. 

Man  might  justly  say  to  God:  '*  I  did  not  ask  to  be 
created.  I  did  not  ask  to  be  sent  into  this  world.  I  had 
no  power  to  select  or  mold  my  nature.  I  am  what  you 
made  me.  I  am  where  you  put  me.  You  knew  when 
You  made  me  how  I  should  act.  If  You  wished  me  to 
act  otherwise,  why  did  You  not  make  me  differently? 
If  I  have  displeased  You,  I  was  fore-ordained  to  displease 
You.  I  was  fore-ordained  by  You  to  be  and  to  do  what 
I  am  and  have  done.  Is  it  my  fault  that  You  fore-or- 
dained me  to  be  and  to  do  thus  ?  " 

Christians  say  a  man  has  a  will  to  choose.  So  he  has. 
But  that  is  only  saying  that  one  human  thought  will  out- 
weigh another.  A  man  thinks  with  his  brain :  his  brain 
was  made  by  God. 

A  tall  man  can  reach  higher  than  a  short  man.  It  is 
not  the  fault  of  the  short  man  that  he  is  outreached :  he 
did  not  fix  his  own  height. 

It  is  the  same  with  the  will.  A  man  has  a  will  to 
jump.  He  can  jump  over  a  five-barred  gate ;  but  he  can- 
not jump  over  a  cathedral. 

So  with  his  will  in  moral  matters.  He  has  a  will  to 
resist  temptation,  but  though  he  may  clear  a  small  tempta- 
tion, he  may  fail  at  a  large  one. 

The  actions  of  a  man's  will  are  as  mathematically 
fixed  at  his  birth  as  are  the  motions  of  a  planet  in  its 
orbit. 


172  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

God,  who  made  the  man  and  the  planet,  is  responsible 
for  the  actions  of  both. 

As  the  natural  forces  created  by  God  regulate  the  in- 
fluences of  Venus  and  Mars  upon  the  Earth,  so  must  the 
natural  forces  created  by  God  have  regulated  the  influ- 
ences of  Eve  and  the  Serpent  on  Adam. 

Adam  was  no  more  blameworthy  for  failing  to  resist 
the  influence  of  Eve  than  the  Earth  is  blameworthy  for 
deviating  in  its  course  round  the  Sun  in  obedience  to  the 
influences  of  Venus  and  Mars. 

Without  the  act  of  God  there  could  have  been  no 
Adam,  and  therefore  no  Fall.  God,  whose  act  is  re- 
sponsible for  Adam's  existence,  is  responsible  for  the 
Fall. 

//  God  is  responsible  for  Man's  existence,  God  is  re- 
sponsible for  all  Man's  acts. 

If  a  boy  brought  a  dog  into  the  house  and  teased  it 
until  it  bit  him,  would  not  his  parents  ask  the  boy,  "  Why 
did  you  bring  the  dog  in  at  all  ? " 

But  if  the  boy  had  trained  the  dog  to  bite,  and  knew 
that  it  would  bite  if  it  were  teased,  and  if  the  boy  brought 
the  dog  in  and  teased  it  until  it  bit  him,  would  the  par- 
ents blame  the  dog? 

And  if  a  magician,  like  one  of  those  at  the  court  of 
Pharaoh,  deliberately  made  an  adder  out  of  the  dust, 
knowing  the  adder  would  bite,  and  then  played  with  the 
adder  until  it  bit  some  spectator,  would  the  injured  man 
blame  the  magician  or  the  adder? 

How,  then,  could  God  blame  Man  for  the  Fall? 

But  you  may  ask  me,  with  surprise,  as  so  many  have 
asked  me  with  surprise,  "  Do  you  really  mean  that  no 
man  is,  under  any  circumstances,  to  be  blamed  for  any- 
thing he  may  say  or  do  ? " 

And  I  shall  answer  you  that  I  do  seriously  mean  that 


CAN  MAN  SIN  AGAINST  GOD?  173 

no  man  can,  under  any  circumstances,  be  justly  blamed 
for  anything  he  may  say  or  do.  That  is  one  of  my  deep- 
est convictions,  and  I  shall  try  very  hard  to  prove  that  it 
is  just. 

But  you  may  say,  as  many  have  said :  "  If  no  man 
can  be  justly  blamed  for  anything  he  says  or  does,  there 
is  an  end  of  all  law  and  order,  and  society  is  impossible." 

And  I  shall  answer  you :  "  No,  on  the  contrary,  there 
is  a  beginning  of  law  and  order,  and  a  chance  that  so- 
ciety may  become  civilized." 

For  it  does  not  follow  that  because  we  may  not  blame 
a  man  we  may  not  condemn  his  acts.  Nor  that  because 
we  do  not  blame  him  we  are  bound  to  allow  him  to  do 
all  manner  of  mischief. 

Several  critics  have  indignantly  exclaimed  that  I  make 
no  difference  between  good  men  and  bad,  that  I  lump 
Torquemada,  Lucrezia  Borgia,  Fenelon,  and  Marcus 
Aurelius  together,  and  condone  the  most  awful  crimes. 

That  is  a  mistake.  I  regard  Lucrezia  Borgia  as  a 
homicidal  maniac,  and  Torquemada  as  a  religious  maniac. 
I  do  not  blame  such  men  and  women.  But  I  should  not 
allow  them  to  do  harm. 

I  believe  that  nearly  all  crimes,  vices,  cruelties,  and 
other  evil  acts  are  due  to  ignorance  or  to  mental  disease. 
I  do  not  hate  the  man  who  calls  me  an  infidel,  a  liar,  a 
blasphemer,  or  a  quack.  I  know  that  he  is  ignorant,  or 
foolish,  or  ill-bred,  or  vicious,  and  I  am  sorry  for  him. 

Socrates,  as  reported  by  Xenophon,  put  my  case,  in  a 
nutshell.  When  a  friend  complained  to  Socrates  that  a 
man  whom  he  had  saluted  had  not  saluted  him  in  return, 
the  father  of  philosophy  replied :  "  It  is  an  odd  thing 
that  if  you  had  met  a  man  ill-conditioned  in  body  you 
would  not  have  been  angry;  but  to  have  met  a  man 
rudely  disposed  in  mind  provokes  you." 


174  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

This  is  sound  philosophy,  I  think.  If  we  pity  a  man 
with  a  twist  in  his  spine,  why  should  we  not  pity  the 
man  with  a  twist  in  his  brain.  If  we  pity  a  man  with 
a  stiff  wrist,  why  not  the  man  with  a  stiff  pride?  If 
we  pity  a  man  with  a  weak  heart,  why  not  the  man 
with  the  weak  will?  If  we  do  not  blame  a  man  for  one 
kind  of  defect,  why  blame  him  for  another  ? 

But  it  does  not  follow  that  because  we  neither  hate 
nor  blame  a  criminal  we  should  allow  him  to  commit 
crime. 

We  do  not  blame  a  rattlesnake,  nor  a  shark.  These 
creatures  only  fulfill  their  natures.  The  shark  who  de- 
vours a  baby  is  no  more  sinful  than  the  lady  who  eats 
a  shrimp.  We  do  not  blame  the  maniac  who  burns  a 
house  down  and  brains  a  policeman,  nor  the  mad  dog 
who  bites  a  minor  poet.  But,  none  the  less,  we  take 
steps  to  defend  ourselves  against  snakes,  sharks,  lunatics, 
and  mad  dogs. 

The  Clarion  does  not  hate  a  cruel  sweater,  nor  a  tyran- 
nous landlord,  nor  a  shuffling  Minister  of  State,  nor  a 
hypocritical  politician :  it  pities  such  poor  creatures.  Yet 
the  Clarion  opposes  sweating  and  tyranny  and  hypocrisy, 
and  does  its  best  to  defeat  and  to  destroy  them. 

If  a  tiger  be  hungry  he  naturally  seeks  food.  I  do 
not  blame  the  tiger;  but  if  he  endeavored  to  make  his 
dinner  off  our  business  manager,  and  I  had  a  gun,  I 
should  shoot  the  tiger. 

We  do  not  hate  nor  blame  the  blight  that  destroys  our 
roses  and  our  vines.  The  blight  is  doing  what  we  do: 
he  is  trying  to  live.  But  we  destroy  the  blight  to  pre- 
serve our  roses  and  our  grapes. 

So  we  do  not  blame  an  incendiary.  But  we  are  quite 
justified  in  protecting  life  and  property.  Dangerous 
men  must  be  restrained.     In  cases  where  they  attempt 


CAN  MAN  SIN  AGAINST  GOD?  175 

to  kill  and  maim  innocent  and  useful  citizens,  as,  for 
instance,  by  dynamite  outrages,  they  must,  in  the  last 
resort,  be  killed. 

"  But,"  you  may  say,  "  the  dynamiter  knows  it  is 
wYong  to  wreck  a  street  and  murder  inoffensive  strangers, 
and  yet  he  does  it.  Is  not  that  free  will?  Is  he  not 
blameworthy  ?  " 

And  I  answer  that  when  a  man  does  wrong  he  does  it 
because  he  knows  no  better,  or  because  he  is  naturally 
vicious. 

And  I  hold  that  in  neither  case  is  he  to  blame :  for  he 
did  not  make  his  nature,  nor  did  he  make  the  influences 
which  have  operated  on  that  nature. 

Man  is  a  creature  of  Heredity  and  Environment.  He 
is  by  Heredity  what  his  ancestors  have  made  him  (or 
what  God  has  made  him).  Up  to  the  moment  of  his 
birth  he  has  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  formation  of 
his  character.  As  Professor  Tyndall  says,  "  that  was 
done  for  him,  and  not  by  him."  From  the  moment  of 
his  birth  he  is  what  his  inherited  nature,  and  the  influ- 
ences into  which  he  has  been,  sent  without  his  consent, 
have  made  him. 

An  omniscient  being  —  like  God  —  who  knew  exactly 
what  a  man's  nature  would  be  at  birth,  and  exactly  the 
nature  of  the  influences  to  which  he  would  be  exposed 
after  his  birth,  could  predict  every  act  and  word  of  that 
man's  life. 

Given  a  particular  nature;  given  particular  influences, 
the  result  will  be  as  mathematically  inevitable  as  the 
speed  and  orbit  of  a  planet. 

Man  is  what  heredity  (or  God)  and  environment  make 
him.  Heredity  gives  him  his  nature.  That  comes  from 
his  ancestors.  Environment  modifies  his  nature;  envi- 
ronment consists  of  the  operation  of  forces  external  to 


176  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

his  nature.  No  man  can  select  his  ancestors;  no  man 
can  select  his  environment.  His  ancestors  make  his 
nature ;  other  men,  and  circumstances,  modify  his  nature. 

Ask  any  horse-breeder  why  he  breeds  from  the  best 
horses,  and  not  from  the  worst.  He  will  tell  you,  be- 
cause good  horses  are  not  bred  from  bad  ones. 

Ask  any  father  why  he  would  prefer  that  his  son 
should  mix  with  good  companions  rather  than  with  bad 
companions.  He  will  tell  you  that  evil  communications 
corrupt  good  manners,  and  pitch  defiles. 

Heredity  decides  how  a  man  shall  be  bred;  environ- 
ment regulates  what  he  shall  learn. 

One  man  is  a  critic,  another  is  a  poet.  Each  is  what 
heredity  and  environment  have  made  him.  Neither  is 
responsible  for  his  heredity  nor  for  his  environment. 

If  the  critic  repents  his  evil  deeds,  it  is  because  some- 
thing has  happened  to  awake  his  remorse.  Someone 
has  told  him  of  the  error  of  his  ways.  That  adviser  is 
part  of  his  environment. 

If  the  poet  takes  to  writing  musical  comedies,  it  is 
because  some  evil  influence  has  corrupted  him.  That 
evil  influence  is  part  of  his  environment. 

Neither  of  these  men  is  culpable  for  what  he  has  done. 
With  nobler  heredity,  or  happier  environment,  both 
might  have  been  journalists;  with  baser  heredity,  or 
more  vicious  environment,  either  might  have  been  a 
millionaire,  a  socialist,  or  even  a  member  of  parliament. 

We  are  all  creatures  of  heredity  and  environment.  It 
is  Fate,  and  not  his  own  merit,  that  has  kept  George 
Bernard  Shaw  out  of  a  shovel  hat  and  gaiters,  and  con- 
demned some  Right  Honorable  Gentlemen  to  manage 
State  Departments  instead  of  planting  cabbages. 

The   child   born   of   healthy,   moral,   and   intellectual 


CAN  MAN  SIN  AGAINST  GOD?  177 

parents  has  a  better  start  in  life  than  the  child  born  of 
unhealthy,  immoral,  and  unintellectual  parents. 

The  child  who  has  the  misfortune  to  be  born  in  the 
vitiated  atmosphere  of  a  ducal  palace  is  at  a  great  dis- 
advantage in  comparison  with  the  child  happily  born  amid 
the  innocent  and  respectable  surroundings  of  a  semi- 
detached villa  in  Brixton. 

What  chance,  then,  has  a  drunkard's  baby  born  in  a 
thieves*  den,  and  dragged  up  amid  the  ignorance  and 
squalor  of  the  slums? 

Environment  is  very  powerful  for  good  or  evil.  Had 
Shakespeare  been  born  in  the  Cannibal  Islands  he  would 
never  have  written  As  You  Like  It;  had  Torquemada 
been  born  a  Buddhist  he  never  would  have  taken  to 
roasting  heretics. 

But  this,  you  may  say,  is  sheer  Fatalism.  Well !  It 
seems  to  me  to  be  truth,  and  philosophy,  and  sweet 
charity. 

And  now  I  will  try  to  show  the  difference  between 
this  Determinism,  which  some  think  must  prove  so 
maleficent,  and  the  Christian  doctrine  of  Free  Will,  which 
many  consider  so  beneficent. 

Let  us  take  a  flagrant  instance  of  wrong-doing.  Sup- 
pose some  person  to  persist  in  playing  *'  Dolly  Grey  "  on 
the  euphonium,  or  to  contract  a  baneful  habit  of  reciting 
"  Curfew  shall  not  Ring  "  at  evening  parties,  the  Christian 
believer  in  Free  Will  would  call  him  a  bad  man,  and 
would  say  he  ought  to  be  punished. 

The  philosophic  Determinist  would  denounce  the 
offender's  conduct,  but  would  not  denounce  the  offender. 

We  Determinists  do  not  denounce  men;  we  denounce 
acts.  We  do  not  blame  men ;  we  try  to  teach  them.  If 
they  are  not  teachable  we  restrain  them. 


178  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

You  will  admit  that  our  method  is  different  from  the 
accepted  method.  I  shall  try  to  convince  you  that  it  is 
also  materially  better  than  the  accepted,  or  Christian, 
method. 

Let  us  suppose  two  concrete  cases :  ( i )  Bill  Sikes  beats 
his  wife;  (2)  Lord  Rackrent  evicts  his  tenants. 

Let  us  first  think  what  would  be  the  orthodox  method 
of  dealing  with  these  two  cases. 

What  would  be  the  orthodox  method?  The  parson 
and  the  man  in  the  street  would  say  Bill  Sikes  was  a 
bad  man,  and  that  he  ought  to  be  punished. 

The  Determinist  would  say  that  Bill  Sikes  had  com- 
mitted a  crime,  and  that  he  ought  to  be  restrained,  and 
taught  better. 

You  may  tell  me  there  seems  to  be  very  little  difference 
in  the  practical  results  of  the  two  methods.  But  that 
is,  because  we  have  not  followed  the  two  methods  far 
enough. 

If  you  will  allow  me  to  follow  the  two  methods  further 
you  will,  I  hope,  agree  with  me  that  their  results  will  not 
be  identical,  but  that  our  results  will  be  immeasurably 
better. 

For  the  orthodox  method  is  based  upon  the  erroneous 
dogma  that  Bill  Sikes  had  a  free  will  to  choose  between 
right  and  wrong,  and  having  chosen  to  do  wrong,  he  is 
a  bad  man,  and  ought  to  be  punished. 

But  the  Determinist  bases  his  method  upon  the  philo- 
sophical theory  that  Bill  Sikes  is  what  heredity  and 
environment  have  made  him ;  and  that  he  is  not  respon- 
sible for  his  heredity,  which  he  did  not  choose,  nor  for 
his  environment,  which  he  did  not  make. 

Still,  you  may  think  the  difference  is  not  effectively 
great.     But  it  is.     For  the  Christian  would  blame  Bill 


CAN  MAN  SIN  AGAINST  GOD?  179 

Sikes,  and  no  one  but  Bill  Sikes.  But  the  Determinist 
would  not  blame  Sikes  at  all ;  he  would  blame  his  envi- 
ronment. 

Is  not  that  a  material  difference?  But  follow  it  out 
to  its  logical  results.  The  Christian,  blaming  only  Bill 
Sikes,  because  he  had  a  "  free  will,"  would  punish  Sikes, 
and  perhaps  try  to  convert  Sikes;  and  there  his  effort 
would  logically  end. 

The  Determinist  would  say :  "  If  this  man  Sikes  has 
been  reared  in  a  slum,  has  not  been  educated,  nor  morally 
trained,  has  been  exposed  to  all  kinds  of  temptation, 
the  fault  is  that  of  the  social  system  which  has  made 
such  ignorance,  and  vice,  and  degradation  possible." 

That  is  one  considerable  difference  between  the  re- 
sults of  a  good  religion  and  a  bad  one.  The  Christian 
condemns  the  man  —  who  is  a  victim  of  evil  social  con- 
ditions. The  Determinist  condemns  the  evil  conditions. 
It  is  the  difference  between  the  methods  of  sending 
individual  sufferers  from  diphtheria  to  the  hospital  and 
the  method  of  condemning  the  drains. 

But  you  may  cynically  remind  me  that  nothing  will 
come  of  the  Determinists'  protest  against  the  evil  social 
conditions.  Perhaps  not.  Let  us  waive  that  question 
for  a  moment,  and  consider  our  second  case. 

Lord  Rackrent  evicts  his  tenants.  The  orthodox 
method  is  well  known.  It  goes  no  further  than  the 
denunciation  of  the  peer,  and  the  raising  of  a  subscrip- 
tion (generally  inadequate)  for  the  sufferers. 

The  Determinist  method  is  different.  The  Deter- 
minist would  say:  "This  peer  is  what  heredity  and 
environment  have  made  him.  We  cannot  blame  him 
for  being  what  he  is.  We  can  only  blame  his  environ- 
ment.   There  must  be  something  wrong  with  a  social 


i8o  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

system  which  permits  one  idle  peer  to  ruin  hundreds  of 
industrious  producers.  The  evil  social  system  should 
be  amended,  or  evictions  will  continue." 

The  Determinist  conclusion  would  be  followed  by  the 
usual  inadequate  subscription. 

And  now  we  will  go  back  to  the  point  we  passed.  You 
may  say,  in  the  case  of  Sikes  and  the  peer,  that  the  logic 
of  the  Determinist  is  sound,  but  ineffective:  nothing 
comes  of  it. 

I  admit  that  nothing  comes  of  it,  and  I  am  now  going 
to  tell  you  why  nothing  comes  of  it. 

The  Determinist  cannot  put  his  wisdom  into  action, 
because  he  is  in  a  minority. 

So  long  as  Christians  have  an  overwhelming  majority 
who  will  not  touch  the  drains,  diphtheria  must  continue. 

So  long  as  the  universal  verdict  condemns  the  victim 
of  a  bad  system,  and  helps  to  keep  the  bad  system  in 
full  working  order,  so  long  will  evil  flourish  and  victims 
suffer. 

If  you  wish  to  realize  the  immense  superiority  of  the 
Determinist  principles  over  the  Christian  religion,  you 
have  only  to  imagine  what  would  happen  if  the  Deter- 
minists  had  a  majority  as  overwhelming  as  the  majority 
of  the  Christians  now  hold. 

•  For  whereas  the  Christian  theory  of  free  will  and 
personal  responsibility  results  in  established  ignorance 
and  injustice,  with  no  visible  remedies  beyond  personal 
denunciation,  the  prison,  and  a  few  coals  and  blankets, 
the  Determinist  method  would  result  in  the  abolition  of 
lords  and  burglars,  of  slums  and  palaces,  of  caste  and 
snobbery.  There  would  be  no  ignorance  and  no  poverty 
left  in  the  world. 

That  is  because  the  Determinist  understands  human 
nature,  and  the  Christian  does  not.     It  is  because  the 


CAN  MAN  SIN  AGAINST  GOD?  i8i 

Determinist  understands  morality,  and  the  Christian  does 
not. 

For  the  Determinist  looks  for  the  cause  of  wrong- 
doing in  the  environment  of  the  wrong-doer.  While  the 
Christian  puts  all  the  wrongs  which  society  perpetrates 
against  the  individual,  and  all  the  wrongs  which  the 
individual  perpetrates  against  his  fellows  down  to  an 
imaginary  "  free  will.'' 

Some  Free-Willers  are  fond  of  crying  out :  "  Once 
admit  that  men  are  not  to  be  blamed  for  their  actions, 
and  all  morality  and  all  improvement  will  cease."  But 
that  is  a  mistake.  As  I  have  indicated  above,  a  good 
many  evils  now  rife  would  cease,  because  then  we  should 
attack  the  evils,  and  not  the  victims  of  the  evils.  But 
it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  we  do  not  detest  cholera 
because  we  do  not  detest  cholera  patients,  or  that  we 
should  cease  to  hate  wrong  because  we  ceased  to  blame 
wrong-doers. 

Admit  the  Determinist  theory,  and  all  would  be  taught 
to  do  well,  and  most  would  take  kindly  to  the  lesson. 
Because  the  fact  that  environment  is  so  powerful  for 
evil  suggests  that  it  is  powerful  for  good.  If  man  is 
what  he  is  made,  it  behooves  a  nation  which  desires  and 
prizes  good  men  to  be  very  earnest  and  careful  in  its 
methods  of  making  them. 

I  believe  that  I  am  what  heredity  and  environment 
made  me.  But  I  know  that  I  can  make  myself  better 
or  worse  if  I  try.  I  know  that  because  I  have  learnt 
it,  and  the  learning  has  been  part  of  my  environment. 

My  claim,  as  a  Determinist,  is  that  it  is  not  so  good 
to  punish  an  offender  as  to  improve  his  environment. 
It  is  good  of  the  Christians  to  open  schools  and  to  found 
charities.  But  as  a  Determinist  I  am  bound  to  say  that 
there  ought  to  be  no  such  things  in  the  world  as  poverty 


i82  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

and  ignorance,  and  one  of  the  contributory  causes  to 
ignorance  and  poverty  is  the  Christian  doctrine  of  free 
will. 

Take  away  from  a  man  all  that  God  gave  him,  and 
there  will  be  nothing  of  him  left. 

Take  away  from  a  man  all  that  heredity  and  environ- 
ment have  given  him,  and  there  will  be  nothing  left. 

Man  is  what  he  is  by  the  act  of  God,  or  the  results  of 
heredity  and  environment.  In  either  cas.e  he  is  not  to 
blame. 

In  one  case  the  result  is  due  to  the  action  of  his 
ancestors  and  society,  in  the  other  to  the  act  of  God. 

Therefore  a  man  is  not  responsible  for  his  actions, 
and  cannot  sin  against  God. 

//  God  is  responsible  for  Man's  existence,  God  is  re- 
sponsible for  Man's  acts. 

A  religion  built  upon  the  doctrine  of  Free  Will  and 
human  responsibility  to  God  is  built  upon  a  misconcep- 
tion and  must  fall. 

Christianity  is  a  fabric  of  impossibilities  erected  upon 
a  foundation  of  error. 

Perhaps,  since  I  find  many  get  confused  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Free  Will  from  their  consciousness  of  continually 
exercising  the  "  power  of  choice,''  I  had  better  say  a 
few  words  here  on  that  subject. 

You  say  you  have  power  to  choose  between  two 
courses.  So  you  have,  but  that  power  is  limited  and 
controlled  by  heredity  and  environment. 

If  you  have  to  choose  between  a  showy  costume  and 
a  plain  one  you  will  choose  the  one  you  like  best,  and 
you  will  like  best  the  one  which  your  nature  (heredity) 
and  your  training  (environment)  will  lead  you  to  like 
best. 

You  think  your  will  is  free.     But  it  is  not.    You  may 


CAN  MAN  SIN  AGAINST  GOD?  183 

think  you  have  power  to  drown  yourself ;  but  you  have 
not.  Your  love  of  life  and  your  sense  of  duty  are  too 
strong  for  you. 

You  might  think  I  have  power  to  leave  the  Clarion 
and  start  an  anti-Socialist  paper.  But  I  know  I  have 
not  that  power.  My  nature  (heredity)  and  my  training 
and  habit  (environment)  are  too  strong  for  me. 

If  you  knew  a  lady  was  going  to  choose  between  a 
red  dress  and  a  gray  one,  and  if  you  knew  the  lady  very 
well,  you  could  guess  her  choice  before  she  made  it. 

If  you  knew  an  honorable  man  was  to  be  offered  a 
bribe  to  do  a  dishonorable  act,  you  would  feel  sure  he 
would  refuse  it. 

If  you  knew  a  toper  was  to  be  offered  as  much  free 
whisky  as  he  could  drink,  you  would  be  sure  he  would 
not  come  home  sober. 

If  you  knew  the  nature  and  the  environment  of  a  man 
thoroughly  well,  and  the  circumstances  (all  the  circum- 
stances) surrounding  a  choice  of  action  to  be  presented 
to  him,  and  if  you  were  clever  enough  to  work  such  a 
difficult  problem,  you  could  forecast  his  choice  before 
he  made  it,  as  surely  as  in  case  of  the  lady,  the  toper, 
and  the  honorable  man  above  mentioned. 

You  have  power  to  choose,  then,  but  you  can  only 
choose  as  your  heredity  and  environment  compel  you  to 
choose.  And  you  do  not  select  your  own  heredity  nor 
your  own  environment. 


CHRISTIAN  APOLOGIES 


CHRISTIAN  APOLOGIES 

Christian  apologists  make  some  daring  claims  on  be- 
half of  their  religion.  The  truth  of  Christianity  is 
proved,  they  say,  by  its  endurance  and  by  its  power; 
the  beneficence  of  its  results  testifies  to  the  divinity  of 
its  origin. 

These  claims  command  wide  acceptance,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  those  who  deny  them  cannot  get  a  hearing. 

The  Christians  have  virtual  command  of  all  the 
churches,  universities,  and  schools.  They  have  the 
countenance  and  support  of  the  Thrones,  Parliaments, 
Cabinets,  and  aristocracies  of  the  world,  and  they  have 
the  nominal  support  of  the  World's  Newpaper  Press. 
They  have  behind  them  the  traditions  of  eighteen  cen- 
turies. They  have  formidable  allies  in  the  shape  of 
whole  schools  of  philosophy  and  whole  libraries  of  elo- 
quence and  learning.  They  have  the  zealous  service 
and  unswerving  credence  of  millions  of  honest  and  worthy 
citizens :  and  they  are  defended  by  solid  ramparts  of  prej- 
udice, and  sentiment,  and  obstinate  old  custom. 

The  odds  against  the  Rationalists  are  tremendous.  To 
challenge  the  claims  of  Christianity  is  easy:  to  get  the 
challenge  accepted  is  very  hard.  Rationalists'  books  and 
papers  are  boycotted.  The  Christians  will  not  listen, 
will  not  reason,  will  not,  if  they  can  prevent  it,  allow  a 
hostile  voice  to  be  heard.  Thus,  from  sheer  lack  of 
knowledge,  the  public  accept  the  Christian  apologist's 
assertions  as  demonstrated  truth. 

And  the  Christians  claim  this  immunity  from  attack 

i8Z 


i88  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

as  a  triumph  of  their  arms,  and  a  further  proof  of  the 
truth  of  their  reHgion.  Religion  has  been  attacked  be- 
fore, they  cry,  and  where  now  are  its  assailants?  And 
the  answer  must  be,  that  many  of  its  assailants  are  in 
their  graves,  but  that  some  of  them  are  yet  alive,  and 
there  are  more  to  follow.  But  the  combat  is  very  un- 
equal. If  the  Rationalists  could  for  only  a  few  years 
have  the  support  of  the  Crowns,  Parliaments,  Aris- 
tocracies, Universities,  Schools,  and  Newspapers  of  the 
world;  if  they  could  preach  Science  and  Reason  twice 
every  Sunday  from  a  hundred  thousand  pulpits,  per- 
haps the  Christians  would  have  less  cause  for  boasting. 

But  as  things  are,  we  "  Infidels  "  must  cease  to  sigh 
for  whirlwinds,  and  do  the  best  we  can  with  the  bellows. 

So:  the  Christians  claim  that  their  religion  has  done 
.vonders  for  the  world;  a  claim  disputed  by  the  Ration- 
alists. 

Now,  when  we  consider  what  Christianity  has  done, 
we  should  take  account  of  the  evil  as  well  as  the  good. 
But  this  the  Christians  are  unwilling  to  allow. 

Christians  declare  that  the  divine  origin  and  truth  of 
their  religion  are  proved  by  its  beneficent  results. 

But  Christianity  has  done  evil  as  well  as  good.  Mr. 
G.  K.  Chesterton,  while  defending  Christianity  in  the 
Daily  News,  said: 

Christianity  has  committed  crimes  so  monstrous,  that  the  sun 
might  sicken  at  them  in  heaven. 

And  no  one  can  refute  that  statement. 

But  Christians  evade  the  dilemma.  When  the  evil 
works  of  their  religion  are  cited,  they  reply  that  those 
evils  were  wrought  by  false  Christianity,  that  they  were 
contrary  to  the  teachings  of  Christ,  and  so  were  not  the 
deeds  of  Christians  at  all. 


CHRISTIAN  APOLOGIES  189 

The  Christian  Commonwealth,  in  advancing  the  above 
plea  a3  to  real  and  false  Christianity,  instanced  the  dif- 
ference between  Astrology  and  Astronomy,  and  said: 

We  fear  Mr.  Blatchford,  if  he  has  any  sense  of  consistency, 
must,  when  he  has  finished  his  tirade  against  Christianity,  turn 
his  artillery  on  Greenwich  Observatory,  and  proclaim  the  As- 
tronomer Royal  a  scientific  quack,  on  account  of  the  follies  of 
star-gazers  in  the  past. 

But  that  parallel  is  not  a  true  one.  Let  us  suppose 
that  the  follies  of  astrology  and  the  discoveries  of  as- 
tronomy v^^ere  bound  up  in  one  book,  and  called  the 
Word  of  God.  Let  us  suppose  we  were  told  that  the 
whole  book  —  facts,  reason,  folly,  and  falsehoods  —  was 
divinely  inspired  and  literally  true.  Let  us  suppose  that 
any  one  who  denied  the  old  crude  errors  of  astrology 
was  persecuted  as  a  heretic.  Let  us  suppose  that  any 
one  denying  the  theory  of  Laplace,  or  the  theory  of 
Copernicus,  would  be  reviled  as  an  "  Infidel."  Let  us 
suppose  that  the  Astronomer  Royal  claimed  infallibility, 
not  only  in  matters  astronomical,  but  also  in  politics 
and  morals.  Let  us  suppose  that  for  a  thousand  years 
the  astrological-astronomical  holy  government  had  whip- 
ped, imprisoned,  tortured,  burnt,  hanged,  and  damned 
for  everlasting  every  man,  woman,  or  child  who  dared 
to  tell  it  any  new  truth,  and  that  some  of  the  noblest 
men  of  genius  of  all  ages  had  been  roasted  or  impaled 
alive  for  being  rude  to  the  equator.  Let  us  suppose 
that  millions  of  pounds  were  still  annually  spent  on 
casting  nativities,  and  that  thousands  of  expensive 
observatories  were  still  maintained  at  the  public  cost 
for  astrological  rites.  Let  us  suppose  all  this,  and  then 
I  should  say  it  would  be  quite  consistent  and  quite 
logical  for  me  to  turn  my  verbal  artillery  on  Greenwich 
Observatory. 


190  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

Would  the  Christians  listen  to  such  a  plea  in  any  other 
case?  Had  Socialists  been  guilty  of  tyranny,  of  war, 
of  massacre,  of  torture,  of  blind  opposition  to  the  truth 
of  science,  of  cruel  persecution  of  the  finest  human 
spirits  for  fifteen  centuries,  can  any  one  believe  for  a 
moment  that  Christians  would  heed  the  excuse  that  the 
founders  of  Socialism  had  not  preached  the  atrocious 
policy  which  the  established  Socialist  bodies  and  the 
recognized  Socialist  leaders  had  put  in  force  persistently 
during  all  those  hundreds  of  cruel  years? 

Would  the  Christian  hearken  to  such  a  defense  from 
a  Socialist,  or  from  a  Mohammedan?  Would  a  Liberal 
accept  it  from  a  Tory?  Would  a  Roman  CathoHc  admit 
it  from  a  Jew? 

Neither  is  it  right  to  claim  credit  for  the  good  deeds, 
and  to  avoid  responsibility  for  the  evil  deeds  of  the 
divine  religion. 

And  the  fact  must  be  insisted  upon,  that  all  religion, 
in  its  very  nature,  makes  for  persecution  and  oppression. 
It  is  the  assumption  that  it  is  wicked  to  doubt  the  ac- 
cepted faith,  and  the  presumption  that  one  religion  ought 
to  revenge  or  justify  its  God  upon  another  religion, 
that  leads  to  all  the  pious  crimes  the  world  groans  and 
bleeds  for. 

This  is  seen  in  the  Russian  outrages  on  the  Jews,  and 
in  the  Moslem  outrages  upon  the  Macedonians  to-day. 
It  is  religious  fanaticism  that  lights  and  fans  and  feeds 
the  fire.  Were  all  the  people  in  the  world  of  one,  or 
of  no,  religion,  to-day  there  would  be  no  Jews  murdered 
by  Christians  and  no  Christians  murdered  by  Moslems 
in  the  East.  The  cause  of  the  atrocities  would  be  gone. 
The  cause  is  religion. 

Why  is  religious  intolerance  so  much  more  fierce  and 
bitter  than  political  intolerance?    Just  because  it  is  re- 


CHRISTIAN  APOLOGIES  191 

ligious.  It  is  the  supernatural  element  that  breeds  the 
fury.  It  is  the  feeling  that  their  religion  is  divine  and 
all  other  religions  wicked ;  it  is  the  belief  that  it  is  a  holy 
thing  to  be  ''  jealous  for  the  Lord,"  that  drives  men 
into  blind  rage  and  ruthless  savagery. 

We  have  to  regard  two  things  at  once,  then :  the  good 
influences  of  Christ's  ethics,  and  the  evil  deeds  of  those 
who  profess  to  be  His  followers. 

As  to  what  some  Christians  call  '*  the  Christianity  of 
Christ,"  I  suggest  that  the  teachings  of  Christ  were  im- 
perfect and  inadequate.  That  they  contain  some  moral 
lessons  I  admit.  But  some  of  the  finest  and  most  gen- 
erally admired  of  those  lessons  do  not  appear  to  have 
been  spoken  by  Christ,  and  for  the  rest  there  is  nothing 
in  His  ethics  that  had  not  been  taught  by  men  before, 
and  little  that  has  not  been  extended  or  improved  by 
men  since  His  era. 

The  New  Testament,  considered  as  a  moral  and  spir- 
itual guide  for  mankind,  is  unsatisfactory.  For  it  is 
based  upon  an  erroneous  estimate  of  human  nature  and 
of  God. 

I  am  sure  that  it  would  be  easy  to  compile  a  book  more 
suitable  to  the  needs  of  Man.  I  think  it  is  a  gross 
blunder  to  assume  that  all  the  genius,  all  the  experience, 
all  the  discovery  and  research;  all  the  poetry,  morality, 
and  science  of  the  entire  human  race  during  the  past 
eighteen  hundred  years  have  failed  to  add  to  or  improve 
the  knowledge  and  morality  of  the  First  Century. 

Mixed  with  much  that  is  questionable  or  erroneous, 
the  New  Testament  contains  some  truth  and  beauty. 
Amid  the  perpetration  of  much  bloodshed  and  tyranny, 
Christianity  has  certainly  achieved  some  good.  I  should 
not  like  to  say  of  any  religion  that  all  its  works  were 
evil.     But  Christ's  message,  as  we  have  it  in  the  Gospels, 


192  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

is  neither  clear  nor  sufficing,  and  has  been  obscured,  and 
at  times  almost  obliterated,  by  the  pomps  and  casuistries 
of  the  schools  and  churches.  And  just  as  it  is  difficult 
to  discover  the  actual  Jesus  among  the  conflicting  Gospel 
stories  of  His  works  and  words,  so  it  is  almost  impos- 
sible to  discover  the  genuine  authentic  Christian  religion 
amid  the  swarm  of  more  or  less  antagonistic  sects  who 
confound  the  general  ear  with  their  discordant  testi- 
monies. 


*      CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVILIZATION 

It  is  a  common  mistake  of  apologists  to  set  down  all 
general  improvements  and  signs  of  improvements  to  the 
credit  of  the  particular  religion  or  political  theory  they 
defend.  Every  good  Liberal  knows  that  bad  harvests 
are  due  to  Tory  government.  Every  good  Tory  knows 
that  his  Party  alone  is  to  thank  for  the  glorious  cer- 
tainties that  Britannia  rules  the  waves,  that  an  English- 
man's house  is  his  castle,  and  that  journeymen  tailors 
earn  fourpence  an  hour  more  than  they  were  paid  in  the 
thirteenth  century. 

Cobdenites  ascribe  every  known  or  imagined  improve- 
ment in  commerce,  and  the  condition  of  the  masses,  to 
Free  Trade.  Things  are  better  than  they  were  fifty 
years  ago:  Free  Trade  was  adopted  fifty  years  ago. 
Ergo  —  there  you  are. 

There  is  not  a  word  about  the  development  of  rail- 
ways and  steam-ships,  about  improved  machines;  about 
telegraphs,  the  cheap  post  and  telephones;  about  edu- 
cation and  better  facilities  of  travel;  about  the  Factory 
Acts  and  Truck  Acts;  about  cheap  books  and  news- 
papers: and  who  so  base  to  whisper  of  Trade  Unions, 
and  Agitators,  and  County  Councils. 

So  it  is  with  the  Christian  religion.  We  are  more 
moral,  more  civilized,  more  humane,  the  Christians  tell 
us,  than  any  human  beings  ever  were  before  us.  And 
we  owe  this  to  the  Christian  religion,  and  to  no  other 
thing  under  Heaven. 

But  for  Christianity  we  never  should  have  had  the 
193 


194  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

House  of  Peers,  the  Times  newspaper,  the  Underground 
Railway,  the  Adventures  of  Captain  Kettle,  the  Fabian 
Society,  or  Sir  Thomas  Lipton. 

The  ancient  Greek  philosophers,  the  Buddhist  mis- 
sionaries, the  Northern  invaders,  the  Roman  laws  and 
Roman  roads,  the  inventions  of  printing,  of  steam  and  of 
railways,  the  learning  of  the  Arabs,  the  discoveries  of 
Copernicus,  Galileo,  Newton,  Herschel,  Hunter,  Laplace, 
Bacon,  Descartes,  Spencer,  Columbus,  Karl  Marx,  Adam 
Smith;  the  reforms  and  heroisms  and  artistic  genius  of 
Wilberforce,  Howard,  King  Asoka,  Washington,  Crom- 
well, Howard,  Stephen  Langton,  Oliver  Cromwell,  Sir 
Thomas  More,  Rabelais,  and  Shakespeare ;  the  wars  and 
travels  and  commerce  of  eighteen  hundred  years,  the 
Dutch  Republic,  the  French  Revolution,  and  the  Jameson 
Raid  have  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  growth  of  civiliza- 
tion in  Europe  and  America. 

And  so  to-day:  science,  invention,  education,  politics, 
economic  conditions,  literature  and  art,  the  ancient 
Greeks  and  Oriental  Wisdom,  and  the  world's  press 
count  for  nothing  in  the  molding  of  the  nations. 
Everything  worth  having  comes  from  the  pulpit,  the 
British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society,  and  the  War  Cry. 

It  is  not  to  our  scientists,  our  statesmen,  our  econo- 
mists, our  authors,  inventors,  and  scholars  that  we  must 
look  for  counsel  and  reform :  such  secular  aid  is  useless, 
and  we  shall  be  wise  to  rely  entirely  upon  His  holiness 
the  Pope  and  His  Grace  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

In  the  England  of  the  Middle  Ages,  when  Christianity 
was  paramount,  there  was  a  cruel  penal  code,  there  was 
slavery,  there  were  barbarous  forest  laws,  there  were 
ruthless  oppression  and  insolent  robbery  of  the  poor, 
there  were  black  ignorance  and  a  terror  of  superstition, 
there  were  murderous  laws  against  witchcraft,  there  was 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  CIVILISATION      195 

savage  persecution  of  the  Jews,  there  were  ''  trial  by 
wager  of  battle,"  and  "  question  "  of  prisoners  by  torture. 

Many  of  these  horrors  endured  until  quite  recent  times. 
Why  did  Christianity,  with  its  spiritual  and  temporal 
power,  permit  such  things  to  be? 

Did  Christianity  abolish  them?  No.  Christianity 
nearly  always  opposed  reform.  The  Church  was  the 
enemy  of  popular  freedom,  the  enemy  of  popular  educa- 
tion ;  the  friend  of  superstition  and  tyranny,  and  the  rob- 
ber baron. 

Those  horrors  are  no  more.  But  Christianity  did  not 
abolish  them.  They  were  abolished  by  the  gradual 
spread  of  humane  feelings  and  the  light  of  knowledge; 
just  as  similar  iniquities  were  abolished  by  the  spread 
of  humane  doctrines  in  India,  centuries  before  the  birth 
of  Christ. 

Organized  and  authoritative  religion  the  world  over 
makes  for  ignorance,  for  poverty  and  superstition.  In 
Russia,  in  Italy,  in  Spain,  in  Turkey,  where  the  Churches 
are  powerful  and  the  authority  is  tense,  the  condition 
of  the  people  is  lamentable.  In  America,  England,  and 
Germany,  where  the  authority  of  the  Church  is  less  rigid 
and  the  religion  is  nearer  rationalism,  the  people  are 
more  prosperous,  more  intelligent,  and  less  superstitious. 
So,  again,  the  rule  of  the  English  Church  seems  less 
beneficial  than  that  of  the  more  rational  and  free  Non- 
conformist. The  worst  found  and  worst  taught  class  in 
England  is  that  of  the  agricultural  laborers,  who  have 
been  for  centuries  left  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  Es- 
tablished Church. 

It  may  be  urged  that  the  French,  although  Catholics, 
are  as  intelligent  and  as  prosperous  as  any  nation  in  the 
world.  But  the  French  are  a  clever  people,  and  since 
their  revolution  have  not  taken  their  religion  so  seriously. 


196  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

Probably  there  are  more  Skeptics  and  Rationalists  in 
France  than  in  any  other  country. 

My  point  is  that  the  prosperity  and  happiness  of  a  na- 
tion do  not  depend  upon  the  form  of  religion  they  pro- 
fess, but  upon  their  native  energy  and  intelligence  and 
the  level  of  freedom  and  knowledge  to  which  they  have 
attained. 

It  is  because  organized  and  authoritative  religion  op- 
poses education  and  liberty  that  we  find  the  most  re- 
ligious peoples  the  most  backward.  And  this  is  a  strange 
commentary  upon  the  claim  of  the  Christians,  that  their 
religion  is  the  root  from  which  the  civilization  and  the 
refinement  of  the  world  have  sprung. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ETHICS 

Christianity,  we  are  told,  inaugurated  the  religion  of 
humanity  and  human  brotherhood.  But  the  Buddhists 
taught  a  religion  of  humanity  and  universal  brotherhood 
before  the  Christian  era ;  and  not  only  taught  the  religion, 
but  put  it  into  practice,  which  the  Christians  never  suc- 
ceeded in  doing,  and  cannot  do  to-day. 

And,  moreover,  the  Buddhists  did  not  spread  their  re- 
ligion of  humanity  and  brotherhood  by  means  of  the 
sword,  and  the  rack,  and  the  thumb-screw,  and  the  fag- 
got; and  the  Buddhists  liberated  the  slave,  and  extended 
their  loving-kindness  to  the  brute  creation. 

The  Buddhists  do  not  depend  for  the  records  of  their 
morality  on  books.  Their  testimony  is  written  upon  the 
rocks.  No  argument  can  explain  away  the  rock  edicts  of 
King  Asoka. 

King  Asoka  was  one  of  the  greatest  Oriental  kings. 
He  ruled  over  a  vast  and  wealthy  nation.  He  was  con- 
verted to  Buddhism,  and  made  it  the  State  religion,  as 
Constantine  made  Christianity  the  State  religion  of 
Rome.  In  the  year  251  B.  C,  King  Asoka  inscribed  his 
earliest  rock  edict.  The  other  edicts  from  which  I  shall 
quote  were  all  cut  more  than  two  centuries  before  our 
era.  The  inscription  of  the  Rupuath  Rock  has  the 
words :  "  Two  hundred  and  fifty  years  have  elapsed 
since  the  departure  of  the  teacher."  Now,  Buddha  died 
in  the  fifth  century  before  Christ. 

The  Dhauli  Edict  of  King  Asoka  contains  the  follow- 
ing: 

197 


198  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

Much  longing  after  the  things  [of  this  life]  is  a  disobedience, 
I  again  declare ;_  not  less  so  is  the  laborious  ambition  of  do- 
minion by  a  prince  who  would  be  a  propitiator  of  Heaven. 
Confess,  and  believe  in  God,  who  is  the  worthy  object  of 
obedience. 

From  the  Tenth  Rock  Edict: 

Earthly  glory  brings  little  profit,  but,  on  the  contrary,  produces 
a  loss  of  virtue.  To  toil  for  heaven  is  difficult  to  peasant  and 
to  prince,  unless  by  a  supreme  effort  he  gives  up  all. 

This  is  from  the  Fourteenth  Edict: 

Piyadasi,  the  friend  of  the  Devas,  values  alone  the  harvest  of 
the  next  world.  For  this  alone  has  this  inscription  been  chis- 
eled, that  our  sons  and  our  grandsons  should  make  no  new 
conquests.  Let  them  not  think  that  conquests  by  the  sword 
merit  the  name  of  conquests.  Let  them  see  their  ruin,  confusion, 
and  violence.  True  conquests  alone  are  the  conquests  of 
Dharma. 

Rock  Edict  No.  i  has: 

Formerly  in  the  great  refectory  and  temple  of  King  Piyadasi, 
the  friend  of  the  Devas,  many  hundred  thousand  animals  were 
daily  sacrificed  for  the  sake  of  food  meat,  .  .  .  but  now  the 
joyful  chorus  resounds  again  and  again  that  henceforward  not 
a  single  animal  shall  be  put  to  death. 

The  Second  Edict  has : 

In  committing  the  least  possible  harm,  in  doing  abundance  of 
good,  in  the  practice  of  pity,  love,  truth,  and  likewise  purity 
of  life,  religion  consists. 

The  Ninth  Edict  has : 

Not  superstitious  rites,  but  kindness  to  slaves  and  servants, 
reverence  towards  venerable  persons,  self-control  with  respect 
to  living  creatures,  .  .  .  these  and  similar  virtuous  actions 
are  the  rites  which  ought  indeed  to  be  performed. 

The  Eighth  Edict  has : 

The  acts  and  the  practice  of  religion,  to  wit,  sympathy,  charity, 
truthfulness,  purity,  gentleness,  kindness. 

The  Sixth  Edict  has : 

I  consider  the  welfare  of  all  people  as  something  for  which  I 
must  work. 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ETHICS  199 

The  Dhauli  Edict  has: 

If  a  man  is  subject  to  slavery  and  ill-treatment,  from  this 
moment  he  shall  be  delivered  by  the  king  from  this  and  other 
captivity.  Many  men  in  this  country  suffer  in  captivity,  there- 
fore the  stupa  containing  the  commands  of  the  king  has  been 
a^  great  want. 

Is  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that  a  people  possessing  so 
much  wisdom,  mercy,  and  purity  two  centuries  before 
Christ  was  born  could  need  to  borrow  from  the  Christian 
ethics  ? 

Mr.  Lillie  says  of  King  Asoka : 

He  antedates  Wilberforce  in  the  matter  of  slavery.  He  ante- 
dates Howard  in  his  humanity  towards  prisoners.  He  antedates 
Tolstoy  in  his  desire  to  turn  the  sword  into  a  pruning-hook. 
He  antedates  Rousseau,  St.  Martin,  Fichte  in  their  wish  to  make 
interior  religion  the  all  in  all. 

King  Asoka  abolished  slavery,  denounced  war,  taught 
spiritual  religion  and  purity  of  life,  founded  hospitals, 
forbade  blood  sacrifices,  and  inculcated  religious  tolera- 
tion, two  centuries  before  the  birth  of  Christ. 

Centuries  before  King  Asoka  the  Buddhists  sent  out 
missionaries  all  over  the  world. 

Which  religion  was  the  borrower  from  the  other  — 
Buddhism  or  Christianity? 

Two  centuries  before  Christ,  King  Asoka  had  cut  upon 
the  rocks  these  words: 

I  pray  with  every  variety  of  prayer  for  those  who  differ  with 
me  in  creed,  that  they,  following  after  my  example,  may  with  me 
attain  unto  eternal  salvation.  And  whoso  doeth  this  is  blessed 
of  the  inhabitants  of  this  world ;  and  in  the  next  world  endless 
moral  merit  resulteth  from  such  religious  charity. —  Edict  XI. 

How  many  centuries  did  it  take  the  Christians  to  rise 
to  that  level  of  wisdom  and  charity?  How  many  Chris- 
tians have  reached  it  yet? 

But  the  altruistic  idea  is  very  much  older  than  Buddha, 
for  it  existed  among  forms  of  life  very  much  earlier  and 


200  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

lower  than  the  human,  and  has,  indeed,  been  a  powerful 
factor  in  evolution. 

Speaking  of  ''  The  Golden  Rule  "  in  his  Confessions 
of  Faith  of  a  Man  of  Science,  Haeckel  says : 

In  the  human  family  this  maxim  has  always  been  accepted 
self-evident;  as  ethical  instinct  it  was  an  inheritance  derived 
from  our  animal  ancestors.  It  had  already  found  a  place  among 
the  herds  of  apes  and  other  social  mammals ;  in  a  similar  man- 
ner, but  with  wider  scope,  it  was  already  present  in  the  most 
primitive  communities  and  among  the  hordes  of  the  least  ad- 
vanced savages.  Brotherly  love  —  mutual  support,  succor,  pro- 
tection, and  the  like  —  had  already  made  its  appearance  among 
gregarious  animals  as  a  social  duty;  for  without  it  the  continued 
existence  of  such  societies  is  impossible.  Although  at  a  later 
period,  in  the  case  of  man,  these  moral  foundations  of  society 
came  to  be  much  more  highly  developed,  their  oldest  prehistoric 
source,  as  Darwin  has  shown,  is  to  be  sought  in  the  social  in- 
stincts of  animals.  Among  the  higher  vertebrates  (dogs,  horses, 
elephants,  etc.),  as  among  the  higher  articulates  (ants,  bees, 
termites,  etc.),  also,  the  development  of  social  relations  and 
duties  is  the  indispensable  condition  of  their  living  together  in 
orderly  societies.  Such  societies  have  for  man  also  been  the 
most  important  instrument  of  intellectual  and  moral  progress. 

It  is  not  to  revelation  that  we  owe  the  ideal  of  human 
brotherhood,  but  to  evolution.  It  is  because  altruism  is 
better  than  selfishness  that  it  has  survived.  It  is  be- 
cause love  is  stronger  and  sweeter  than  greed  that  its  in- 
fluence has  deepened  and  spread.  From  the  love  of  the 
animal  for  its  mate,  from  the  love  of  parents  for  their 
young,  sprang  the  ties  of  kindred  and  the  loyalty  of 
friendship ;  and  these  in  time  developed  into  tribal,  and 
thence  into  national  patriotism.  And  these  stages  of 
altruistic  evolution  may  be  seen  among  the  brutes.  It 
remained  for  Man  to  take  the  grand  step  of  embracing 
all  humanity  as  one  brotherhood  and  one  nation. 

But  the  root  idea  of  fraternity  and  mutual  loyalty  was 
not  planted  by  any  priest  or  prophet.  For  countless 
ages    universal    brotherhood    has    existed    amongst    the 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ETHICS  201 

bison,  the  swallow,  and  the  deer,  in  a  perfection  to  which 
humanity  has  not  yet  attained. 

For  a  fuller  account  of  this  animal  origin  of  fraternity 
I  recommend  the  reader  to  two  excellent  books,  The 
Martyrdom  of  Man,  by  Winwood  Reade  (Kegan  Paul), 
and  Mutual  Aid,  by  Prince  Kropotkin  (Heinemann). 

But  the  Christian  claims  that  Christ  taught  a  new  gos- 
pel of  love,  and  mercy,  and  goodwill  to  men.  That  is 
a  great  mistake.  Christ  did  not  originate  one  single  new 
ethic. 

The  Golden  Rule  was  old.  The  Lord's  Prayer  was 
old.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount  was  old.  With  the 
latter  I  will  deal  briefly.  For  a  fuller  statement,  please 
see  the  R.P.A.  sixpenny  edition  of  Huxley's  Lectures 
and  Essays,  and  Christianity  and  Mythology,  by  J.  M. 
Robertson. 

Shortly  stated,  Huxley  argument  was  to  the  following 
effect  : 

That  Mark's  Gospel  is  the  oldest  of  the  Synoptic  Gos- 
pels, and  that  Mark's  Gospel  does  not  contain,  nor  even 
mention,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  That  Luke  gives 
no  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  but  gives  what  may  be  called 
a  "  Sermon  on  the  Plain."  That  Luke's  sermon  differs 
materially  from  the  sermon  given  by  Matthew.  That 
the  Matthew  version  contains  one  hundred  and  seven 
verses,  and  the  Luke  version  twenty-nine  verses. 
Huxley's  conclusion  is  as  follows: 

"  Matthew,"  having  a  cento  of  sayings  attributed  — 
rightly  or  wrongly  it  is  impossible  to  say  —  to  Jesus 
among  his  materials,  thought  they  were,  or  might  be, 
records  of  continuous  discourse,  and  put  them  in  a 
place  he  thought  likeliest.  Ancient  historians  of  the 
highest  character  saw  no  harm   in  composing  long 


202  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

speeches  which  never  were  spoken,  and  putting  them 
into  the  mouths  of  statesmen  and  warriors ;  and  I  pre- 
sume that  whoever  is  represented  by  ''  Matthew," 
would  have  been  grievously  astonished  to  find  that 
any  one  objected  to  his  following  the  example  of  the 
best  models  accessible  to  him. 

But  since  Huxley  wrote  those  words  more  evidence  has 
been  produced.  From  the  Old  Testament,  from  the 
Talmud,  and  from  the  recently  discovered  Teaching  of 
the  Twelve  Apostles  (a  pre-Christian  work),  the  origins 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  have  been  fully  traced. 

Agnostic  criticism  now  takes  an  attitude  towards  this 
sermon  which  may  be  thus  expressed : 

1.  The  sermon  never  was  preached  at  all.  It  is  a 
written  compilation. 

2.  The  story  of  the  mount  is  a  myth.  The  name  of 
the  mount  is  not  given.  It  is  not  reasonable  to  sup- 
pose that  Jesus  would  lead  a  multitude  up  a  mountain 
to  speak  to  them  for  a  few  minutes.  The  mountain 
is  an  old  sun-myth  of  the  Sun  God  on  his  hill,  and  the 
twelve  apostles  are  another  sun-myth,  and  represent 
the  signs  of  the  Zodiac. 

3.  There  is  nothing  in  the  alleged  sermon  that  was 
new  at  the  time  of  its  alleged  utterance. 

Of  course,  it  may  be  claimed  that  the  arrangement  of 
old  texts  in  a  new  form  constitutes  a  kind  of  originality ; 
as  one  might  say  that  he  who  took  flowers  from  a  score 
of  gardens  and  arranged  them  into  one  bouquet  produced 
a  new  effect  of  harmony  and  beauty.  But  this  credit 
must  be  given  to  the  compilers  of  the  gospels'  version  of 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

Let  us  take  a  few  pre-Christian  morals. 

Sextus  said :  "  What  you  wish  your  neighbors  to  be 
to  you,  such  be  also  to  them." 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  ETHICS  203 

Isocrates  said :  "  Act  towards  others  as  you  desire 
others  to  act  towards  you." 

Lao-tze  said :     "  The  good  I  would  meet  with  good- 
ness, the  not-good  I  would  also  meet  with  goodness." 
.  Buddha  said :     "  Hatred  does  not  cease  by  hatred  at 
any  time ;  hatred  ceases  by  love." 

And  again :  "  Let  us  live  happily,  not  hating  those 
who  hate  us." 

In  the  Talmud  occur  the  following  Jewish  anticipa- 
tions of  Christian  morals : 

Love  peace,  and  seek  it  at  any  price. 

Remember  that  it  is  better  to  be  persecuted  than  persecutor. 

To  whom  does  God  pardon  sins?  —  To  him  who  himself  for- 
gives injuries. 

Those  who  undergo  injuries  without  returning  it,  those  who 
hear  themselves  vilified  and  do  not  reply,  who  have  no  motive 
but  love,  who  accept  evils  with  joy;  it  is  of  them  that  the 
prophet  speaks  when  he  says,  the  friends  of  God  shall  shine 
one  day  as  the  sun  in  all  his  splendor. 

It  is  not  the  wicked  we  should  hate,  but  wickedness. 

Be  like  God,  compassionate,  merciful. 

Judge  not  your  neighbor  when  you  have  not  been  in  his  place. 

He  who  charitably  judges  his  neighbor  shall  be  charitably 
judged  by  God. 

Do  not  unto  others  that  which  it  would  be  disagreeable  to  you 
to  suffer  yourself,  that  is  the  main  part  of  the  law;  all  the  rest 
is  only  commentary. 

From  the  Old  Testament  come  such  morals  as : 

Let  him  give  his  cheek  to  him  that  smiteth  him  (Sam.  iii.  30). 
Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself  (Lev.  xix,  18). 
He  that  is  of  a  lowly  spirit  shall  obtain  honor   (Prov.  xxix. 
23). 

The  meek  shall  inherit  the  land  (Ps.  xxxvii.  11). 

History  and  ancient  literature  prove  that  Christianity 
did  not  bring  a  new  moral  code,  did  not  inaugurate  peace, 
nor  purity,  nor  universal  brotherhood,  did  not  originate 
the  ideal  human  character:  but  checked  civilization,  re- 
sisted all  enlightenment,  and  deluged  the  earth  with  in- 
nocent blood  in  the  endeavor  to  compel  mankind  to  drink 
old  moral  wine  out  of  new  theological  bottles. 


204  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

Three  of  the  greatest  blessings  men  can  have  are  free- 
dom, liberty  of  conscience,  and  knowledge.  These  bless- 
ings Christianity  has  not  given,  but  has  opposed. 

It  is  largely  to  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans,  to  the 
Arabs  and  the  Indians,  to  patriots,  heroes,  statesmen, 
scholars,  scientists,  travelers,  inventors,  discoverers,  au- 
thors, poets,  philanthropists,  rebels,  skeptics,  and  reform- 
ers that  the  world  owes  such  advance  as  it  has  made  to- 
wards liberty  and  happiness  and  universal  loving-kind- 
ness. 

This  advance  has  been  made  in  defiance  of  Christian 
envy,  hatred,  and  malice,  and  in  defiance  of  Christian 
tyranny  and  persecution.  After  fighting  fiercely  to  de- 
feat the  advance  of  humanity,  after  slaying  and  cursing 
the  noblest  sons  and  daughters  of  the  ages,  the  defeated 
Christians  now  claim  to  have  conquered  the  fields  they 
have  lost,  to  have  bestowed  the  benefits  they  have  de- 
nied, to  have  evolved  the  civilization  they  have  maimed 
and  damned. 

As  a  Democrat,  a  Humanist,  and  a  Socialist  I  join  my 
voice  to  the  indignant  chorus  which  denies  those  claims. 


THE  SUCCESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

We  are  told  that  the  divine  origin  and  truth  of  Chris- 
tianity are  proved  by  the  marvelous  success  of  that  re- 
ligion. But  it  seems  to  me  that  the  reverse  is  proved  by 
its  failure. 

Christianity  owed  its  magnificent  opportunities  (which 
it  has  wasted)  to  several  accidental  circumstances.  Just 
as  the  rise  of  Buddhism  was  made  possible  by  the  act  of 
King  Asoka  in  adopting  it  as  the  State  religion  of  his 
vast  Indian  kingdom,  was  the  rise  of  Christianity  made 
possible  by  the  act  of  the  Emperor  Constantine  in  adopt- 
ing it  as  the  State  religion  of  the  far-stretched  Roman 
Empire. 

Christianity  spread  rapidly  because  the  Roman  Empire 
was  ripe  for  a  new  religion.  It  conquered  because  it 
threw  in  its  lot  with  the  ruling  powers.  It  throve  be- 
cause it  came  with  the  tempting  bribe  of  Heaven  in  one 
hand,  and  the  withering  threat  of  Hell  in  the  other.  The 
older  religions,  gray  in  their  senility,  had  no  such  bribe  or 
threat  to  conjure  with. 

Christianity  overcame  opposition  by  murdering  or 
cursing  all  who  resisted  its  advance.  It  exterminated 
skepticism  by  stifling  knowledge,  and  putting  a  merciless 
veto  on  free  thought  and  free  speech,  and  by  rewarding 
philosophers  and  discoverers  with  a  faggot  and  the  chain. 
It  held  its  power  for  centuries  by  force  of  hell-fire,  and 
ignorance,  and  the  sword ;  and  the  greatest  of  these  was 
ignorance. 

Nor  must  it  be  supposed  that  the  persecution  and  the 
205 


2o6  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

slaughter  of  "  Heretics  "  and  ''  Infidels  "  was  the  excep- 
tion. It  was  the  rule.  Motley,  the  American  historian, 
states  that  Torquemada,  during  eighteen  years'  command 
of  the  Inquisition,  burnt  more  than  ten  thousand  people 
alive,  and  punished  nearly  a  hundred  thousand  with 
infamy,  confiscation  of  property,  or  perpetual  imprison- 
ment. 

To  be  a  Jew,  a  Moslem,  a  Lutheran,  a  "  wizard,"  a 
skeptic,  a  heretic  was  to  merit  death  and  torture.  One 
order  of  Philip  of  Spain  condemned  to  death  as  "  here- 
tics "  the  entire  population  of  the  Netherlands. 
Wherever  the  Christian  religion  was  successful  the  mar- 
tyrs' fires  burned,  and  the  devilish  instruments  of  torture 
were  in  use.  For  some  twelve  centuries  the  Holy 
Church  carried  out  this  inhuman  policy.  And  to  this  day 
the  term  "  free  thought "  is  a  term  of  reproach.  The 
shadow  of  the  fanatical  priest,  that  half-demented  cow- 
ard, sneak  and  assassin,  still  blights  us.  Although  that 
holy  monster,  with  his  lurking  spies,  his  villainous  casuis- 
tries, his  flames  and  devils,  and  red-hot  pincers,  and 
whips  of  steel,  has  been  defeated  by  the  humanity  he 
scorned  and  the  knowledge  he  feared,  yet  he  has  left  a 
taint  behind  him.  It  is  still  held  that  it  ought  to  be  an 
unpleasant  thing  to  be  an  Infidel. 

And,  yes,  there  were  other  factors  in  the  "  success  "  of 
Christianity.  The  story  of  the  herald  angels,  the  wise 
men  from  the  east,  the  manger,  the  child  God,  the  cross, 
and  the  gospel  of  mercy  and  atonement,  and  of  universal 
brotherhood  and  peace  amongst  the  earthly  children  of  a 
Heavenly  Father,  whose  attribute  was  love  —  this  story 
possessed  a  certain  homely  beauty  and  sentimental 
glamour  which  won  the  allegiance  of  many  golden-hearted 
and  sweet-souled  men  and  women.  These  lovely  natures 
assimilated  from  the  chaotic  welter  of  beauty  and  ashes 


THE  SUCCESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY       207 

called  the  Christian  religion  all  that  was  pure,  and  re- 
jected all  that  was  foul.  It  was  the  light  of  such  sover- 
eign souls  as  Joan  of  Arc  and  Francis  of  Assisi  that 
saved  Christianity  from  darkness  and  the  pit;  and  how 
much  does  that  religion  owe  to  the  genius  of  Wyclif  and 
Tyndale,  of  Milton  and  Handel,  of  Mozart  and  Thomas 
a  Kempis,  of  Michael  Angelo  and  Rafael,  and  the  com- 
pilers of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer? 

There  are  good  men  and  good  women  by  millions  in 
the  Christian  ranks  to-day,  and  it  is  their  virtue,  and 
their  zeal,  and  their  illumination  of  its  better  qualities, 
and  charitable  and  loyal  shelter  of  its  follies  and  its 
crimes,  that  keep  the  Christian  religion  still  alive. 

Christianity  has  been  for  fifteen  hundred  years  the 
religion  of  the  brilliant,  brave,  and  strenuous  races  in 
the  world.  And  what  has  it  accomplished?  And  how 
does  it  stand  to-day. 

Is  Christianity  the  rule  of  life  in  America  and  Europe  ? 
Are  the  masses  of  people  who  accept  it  peaceful,  virtu- 
ous, chaste,  spiritually  minded,  prosperous,  happy?  Are 
their  national  laws  based  on  its  ethics?  Are  their  inter- 
national politics  guided  by  the  "  Sermon  on  the  Mount  "  ? 
Are  their  noblest  and  most  Christlike  men  and  women 
most  revered  and  honored?  Is  the  Christian  religion 
loved  and  respected  by  those  outside  its  pale  ?  Are  Lon- 
don and  Paris,  New  York  and  St.  Petersburg,  Berlin, 
Vienna,  Brussels,  and  Rome  centers  of  holiness  and  of 
sweetness  and  light?  From  Glasgow  to  Johannesburg, 
from  Bombay  to  San  Francisco  is  God  or  Mammon 
king? 

If  a  tree  should  be  known  by  its  fruit,  the  Christian 
religion  has  small  right  to  boast  of  its  "  success." 

But  the  Christian  will  say,  "  This  is  not  Christianity, 
but  its  caricature."    Where,  then,  is  the  saving  grace, 


2o8  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

the  compelling  power,  of  this  divine  religioti,  w^ich, 
planted  by  God  Himself,  is  found  after  nineteen  cen- 
turies to  yield  nothing  but  leaves? 

After  all  these  sad  ages  of  heroism  and  crime,  of  war 
and  massacre,  of  preaching  and  praying,  of  blustering 
and  trimming ;  after  all  this  prodigal  waste  of  blood  and 
tears,  and  labor  and  treasure,  and  genius  and  sacrifice, 
we  have  nothing  better  to  show  for  Christianity  than 
European  and  American  Society  to-day. 

And  this  ghastly  heart-breaking  failure  proves  the 
Christian  religion  to  be  the  Divine  Revelation  of  God! 


THE  PROPHECIES 

Another  alleged  proof  of  the  divine  verity  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion  is  the  Prophecies.  Hundreds  of  books  — 
perhaps  I  might  say  thousands  of  books  —  have  been 
written  upon  these  prophecies.  Wonderful  books,  won- 
derful prophecies,  wonderful  religion,  wonderful  people. 

If  religious  folks  did  not  think  by  moonlight  those 
books  on  the  prophecies  would  never  have  been  written. 
There  are  the  prophecies  of  Christ's  coming  which  are 
pointed  out  in  the  Old  Testament.  That  the  Jews  had 
many  prophecies  of  a  Jewish  Messiah  is  certain.  But 
these  are  indefinite.  There  is  not  one  of  them  which 
unmistakably  applies  to  Jesus  Christ ;  and  the  Jews,  who 
should  surely  understand  their  own  prophets  and  their 
own  Scriptures,  deny  that  Christ  was  the  Messiah  whose 
coming  the  Scriptures  foretold. 

Then,  we  have  the  explicit  prophecy  of  Christ  Himself 
as  to  His  second  coming.  That  prophecy  at  least  is 
definite;  and  that  has  never  been  fulfilled. 

For  Christ  declared  in  the  plainest  and  most  solemn 
manner  that  He  would  return  from  Heaven  with  power 
and  glory  within  the  lifetime  of  those  to  whom  He  spoke : 

Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  this  generation  shall  not  pass,  till  all 
these  things  be  fulfilled. 

These  prophecies  by  Christ  of  His  return  to  earth  may 
be  read  in  the  Gospels  of  Matthew  and  Luke.  They  are 
distinct,  and  definite,  and  solemn,  and  —  untrue. 

I  could  fill  many  pages  with  unfulfilled  prophecies  from 
209 


210  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  I  think  the  one  I  give 
is  enough. 

Jesus  Christ  distinctly  says  that  He  will  come  in  glory 
with  all  His  Angels  before  "  this  generation  "  shall  have 
passed  away. 

This  is  the  year  1903,  Christ  uttered  His  prophecy 
about  the  year  31. 


THE  UNIVERSALITY  OF  RELIGIOUS   BELIEF 

Christians  declare  the  religious  sentiment  to  be  uni- 
versal. Even  if  it  were  so,  that  would  show  a  universal 
spiritual  hunger;  but  would  not  prove  the  Christian  re- 
ligion to  be  its  only  food. 

But  the  religious  sentiment  is  not  universal.  I  know 
many  young  people  who  have  never  been  taught  religion 
of  any  kind,  who  have  never  read  Bible  nor  Gospel,  who 
never  attended  any  place  of  worship ;  and  they  are  virtu- 
ous and  courteous  and  compassionate  and  happy,  and 
feel  no  more  need  of  spiritual  comfort  or  religious  conso- 
lation than  I  do. 

They  are  as  gentle,  sweet,  and  merry,  and  do  their 
duty  as  faithfully  as  any  Christian,  yet  to  them  Heaven 
and  Hell  are  meaningless  abstractions,  God  and  the  soul 
are  problems  they,  with  quiet  cheerfulness,  leave  time  to 
solve. 

If  the  craving  for  religion  were  universal  these  young 
folks  would  not  be  free  from  spiritual  hunger.  As  they 
are  free  from  spiritual  hunger,  I  conclude  that  the  crav- 
ing for  religion  is  not  born  in  us  but  must  be  inculcated. 

Many  good  men  and  women  will  look  blank  at  such 
heresy.  "  What !  "  they  will  exclaim,  "  take  away  the 
beHef  in  the  Bible,  and  the  service  of  God?  Why,  our 
lives  would  be  empty.  What  would  you  give  us  in  ex- 
change ?  " 

To  which  I  answer,  "  The  belief  in  yourselves,  and 

211 


212  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

the  belief  in  your  fellow-creatures,  and  the  service  of 
Man." 

Such  belief  and  such  service  will  certainly  increase  the 
sum  of  happiness  on  earth.  And  as  for  the  Hereafter 
—  no  man  knoweth.    No  man  knoweth. 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  THE  ONLY  HOPE? 

Christians  tell  us  that  their  religion  is  our  only  refuge, 
that  Christ  is  our  only  saviour.  From  the  wild  Salva- 
tion Army  captain,  thundering  and  beseeching  under  his 
banner  of  blood  and  fire,  to  the  Academic  Bishop  recon- 
ciling science  and  transfiguring  crude  translations  in  the 
dim  religious  light  of  a  cathedral,  all  the  Apostles  of  the 
Nazarene  carpenter  insist  that  He  is  the  only  way.  In 
this  the  Christian  resembles  the  Hindu,  the  Parsee,  the 
Buddhist,  and  the  Mohammedan.  There  is  but  one  true 
religion,  and  it  is  his. 

The  Rationalist  looks  on  with  a  rueful  smile,  and  won- 
ders. He  sees  nothing  in  any  one  of  these  religions  to 
justify  its  claim  to  infallibility  or  pre-eminence.  It  seems 
to  him  unreasonable  to  assert  that  any  theology  or  any 
saviour  is  indispensable.  He  realizes  that  a  man  may 
be  good  and  happy  in  any  church,  or  outside  any  church. 
He  cannot  admit  that  only  those  who  follow  Jesus,  or 
Buddha,  or  Mahomet,  or  Moses  can  be  "saved,"  nor 
that  all  those  who  fail  to  believe  in  the  divine  mission  of 
one  or  all  of  these  will  be  lost. 

Let  us  consider  the  Christian  claim.  If  the  Christian 
claim  be  valid,  men  cannot  be  good,  nor  happy,  cannot 
be  saved,  except  through  Christ.  Is  this  position  sup- 
ported by  the  facts? 

One  Christian  tells  me  that  "  It  is  in  the  solemn  reali- 
ties of  life  that  one  gets  his  final  evidence  that  Chris- 
tianity is  true.''    Another  tells  me  that  "  In  Christ  alone 

215 


214  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

is  peace  " ;  another,  that  "  Without  Christ  there  is  neither 
health  nor  hoHness." 

If  these  statements  mean  anything,  they  mean  that 
none  but  true  Christians  can  live  well,  nor  die  well,  nor 
bear  sorrow  and  pain  with  fortitude,  do  their  whole  duty 
manfully,  nor  find  happiness  here  and  bliss  hereafter. 

But  I  submit  that  Christianity  does  not  make  men  lead 
better  lives  than  others  lead  who  are  not  Christians,  and 
there  are  none  so  abjectly  afraid  of  death  as  Christians 
are.  The  Pagan,  the  Buddhist,  the  Mohammedan,  and 
the  Agnostic  do  not  fear  death  nearly  so  much  as  do  the 
Christians. 

The  words  of  many  of  the  greatest  Christians  are 
gloomy  with  the  fears  of  death,  of  Hell,  and  of  the  wrath 
of  God. 

The  Roman  soldier,  the  Spartan  soldier,  the  Moham- 
medan soldier  did  not  fear  death.  The  Greek,  the  Bud- 
dhist, the  Moslem,  the  Viking  went  to  death  as  to  a  re- 
ward, or  as  to  the  arms  of  a  bride.  Compare  the 
writings  of  Marcus  Aurelius  and  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  of 
Epictetus  and  John  Bunyan,  and  then  ask  yourself 
whether  the  Christian  religion  makes  it  easier  for  men 
to  die. 

There  are  millions  of  Europeans  —  not  to  speak  of 
Buddhists  and  Jews  —  there  are  millions  of  men  and 
women  to-day  who  are  not  Christians.  Do  they  live 
worse  or  die  worse,  or  bear  trouble  worse,  than  those 
who  accept  the  Christian  faith? 

Some  of  us  have  come  through  "  the  solemn  realities 
of  life,''  and  have  not  realized  that  Christianity  is  true. 
We  do  not  believe  the  Bible;  we  do  not  believe  in  the 
divinity  of  Christ;  we  do  not  pray,  nor  feel  the  need  of 
prayer;  we  do  not  fear  God,  nor  Hell,  nor  death.  We 
are  as  happy  as  our  even  Christian;  we  are  as  good  as 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  THE  ONLY  HOPE?     215 

our  even  Christian;  we  are  as  benevolent  as  our  even 
Christian:  what  has  Christianity  to  offer  us? 

There  are  in  the  world  some  four  hundred  and  fifty 
millions  of  Buddhists.  How  do  they  bear  themselves  in 
"4:he  solemn  reaHties  of  life"? 

I  suggest  that  consolation,  and  fortitude,  and  cheerful- 
ness, and  loving-kindness  are  not  in  the  exclusive  gift  of 
the  Christian  religion,  but  may  be  found  by  good  men  in 
all  religions. 

As  to  the  effects  of  Christianity  on  life.  Did  Buddha, 
and  King  Asoka,  and  Socrates,  and  Aristides  lead  happy, 
and  pure,  and  useful  lives  ?  Were  there  no  virtuous,  nor 
happy,  nor  noble  men  and  women  during  all  the  millions 
of  years  before  the  Crucifixion?  Was  there  neither  love, 
nor  honor,  nor  wisdom,  nor  valor,  nor  peace  in  the  world 
until  Paul  turned  Christian?  History  tells  us  no  such 
gloomy  story. 

Are  there  no  good,  nor  happy,  nor  worthy  men  and 
women  to-day  outside  the  pale  of  the  Christian  churches  ? 
Amongst  the  eight  hundred  millions  of  human  beings 
who  do  not  know  or  do  not  follow  Christ,  are  there  none 
as  happy  and  as  worthy  as  any  who  follow  Him? 

Are  we  Rationalists  so  wicked,  so  miserable,  so  useless 
in  the  world,  so  terrified  of  the  shadow  of  death  ?  I  beg 
to  say  we  are  nothing  of  the  kind.  We  are  quite  easy 
and  contented.  There  is  no  despair  in  our  hearts.  We 
are  not  afraid  of  bogies,  nor  do  we  dread  the  silence  and 
the  dark. 

Friend  Christian,  you  are  deceived  in  this  matter. 
When  you  say  that  Christ  is  the  only  true  teacher,  that 
He  is  the  only  hope  of  mankind,  that  He  is  the  only 
Saviour,  I  must  answer  sharply,  that  I  do  not  believe 
that,  and  I  do  not  think  you  believe  it  deep  down  in  your 
heart.    For  if  Christ  is  the  only  Saviour,  then  thousands 


2i6  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

of  millions  of  Buddhists  have  died  unsaved,  and  you 
know  you  do  not  believe  that. 

Jeremy  Taylor  believed  that ;  but  you  know  better. 

Do  you  not  know,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  that  it  is  as  well 
in  this  world,  and  shall  be  as  well  hereafter,  with  a  good 
Buddhist,  or  Jew,  or  Agnostic,  as  with  a  good  Chris- 
tian? 

Do  you  deny  that?  If  you  deny  it,  tell  me  what  pun- 
ishment you  think  will  be  inflicted,  here  or  hereafter,  on 
a  good  man  who  does  not  accept  Christianity. 

If  you  do  not  deny  it,  then  on  what  grounds  do  you 
claim  that  Christ  is  the  Saviour  of  all  mankind,  and  that 
"  only  in  Christ  we  are  made  whole  "  ? 

You  speak  of  the  spiritual  value  of  your  religion. 
What  can  it  give  you  more  than  Socrates  or  Buddha  pos- 
sessed? These  men  had  wisdom,  courage,  morality, 
fortitude,  love,  mercy.  Can  you  find  in  all  the  world  to- 
day two  men  as  wise,  as  good,  as  gentle,  as  happy  ?  Yet 
these  men  died  centuries  before  Christ  was  born. 

If  you  believe  that  none  but  Christians  can  be  happy  or 
good;  or  if  you  believe  that  none  but  Christians  can 
escape  extinction  or  punishment,  then  there  is  some  logic 
in  your  belief  that  Christ  is  our  only  Saviour.  But  that 
is  to  believe  that  there  never  was  a  good  man  before 
Christ  died,  and  that  Socrates  and  Buddha,  and  many 
thousands  of  millions  of  men,  and  women,  and  children, 
before  Christ  and  after,  have  been  lost. 
Such  a  belief  is  monstrous  and  absurd. 
But  I  see  no  escape  from  the  dilemma  it  places  us  in. 
If  only  Christ  can  save,  about  twelve  hundred  millions 
of  our  fellow-creatures  will  be  lost. 

If  men  can  be  saved  without  Christ,  then  Christ  is  not 
our  only  Saviour. 

Christianity  seems  to  be  a  composite  religion,  made  up 


IS  CHRISTIANITY  THE  ONLY  HOPE?     217 

of  fragments  of  religions  of  far  greater  antiquity.  It  is 
alleged  to  have  originated  some  two  thousand  years  ago. 
It  has  never  been  the  religion  of  more  than  one-third  of 
the  human  race,  and  of  those  professing  it  only  ten  per 
cent,  at  any  time  have  thoroughly  understood,  or  sin- 
cerely followed,  its  teachings.  It  was  not  indispensable 
to  the  human  race  during  the  thousands  (I  say  millions) 
of  years  before  its  advent.  It  is  not  now  indispensable 
to  some  eight  hundred  millions  of  human  beings.  It  had 
no  place  in  the  ancient  civilizations  of  Egypt,  Assyria, 
and  Greece.  It  was  unknown  to  Socrates,  to  Epicurus, 
to  Aristides,  to  Marcus  Aurelius,  to  King  Asoka,  and  to 
Buddha.  It  has  opposed  science  and  liberty  almost  from 
the  first.  It  has  committed  the  most  awful  crimes  and 
atrocities.  It  has  upheld  the  grossest  errors  and  the 
most  fiendish  theories  as  the  special  revelations  of  God. 
It  has  been  defeated  in  argument  and  confounded  by 
facts  over  and  over  again,  and  has  been  steadily  driven 
back  and  back,  abandoning  one  essential  position  after 
another,  until  there  is  hardly  anything  left  of  its  original 
pretensions.  It  is  losing  more  and  more  every  day  its 
hold  upon  the  obedience  and  confidence  of  the  masses, 
and  has  only  retained  the  suffrages  of  a  minority  of  edu- 
cated minds  by  accepting  as  truths  the  very  theories 
which  in  the  past  it  punished  as  deadly  sins.  Are  these 
the  signs  of  a  triumphant  and  indispensable  religion? 
One  would  think,  to  read  the  Christian  apologists,  that 
before  the  advent  of  Christianity  the  world  had  neither 
virtue  nor  wisdom.  But  the  world  is  very  old.  Civiliza- 
tion is  very  old.  The  Christian  religion  is  but  a  new 
thing,  is  a  mere  episode  in  the  history  of  human  develop- 
ment, and  has  passed  the  zenith  of  its  power. 


SPIRITUAL  DISCERNMENT 

Christians  say  that  only  those  who  are  naturally  re- 
ligious can  understand  religion,  or,  as  Archdeacon  Wil- 
son puts  it,  "  Spiritual  truths  must  be  spiritually  dis- 
cerned." This  seems  to  amount  to  a  claim  that  religious 
people  possess  an  extra  sense  or  faculty. 

When  a  man  talks  about  "  spiritual  discernment,"  he 
makes  a  tacit  assertion  which  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to 
pass  unchallenged.  What  is  that  assertion  or  implica- 
tion? It  is  the  implication  that  there  is  a  spiritual  dis- 
cernment which  is  distinct  from  mental  discernment. 
What  does  that  mean?  It  means  that  man  has  other 
means  of  understanding  besides  his  reason. 
I     This  spiritual  discernment  is  a  metaphysical  myth. 

Man  feels,  sees,  and  reasons  with  his  brain.  His  brain 
may  be  more  emotional  or  less  emotional,  more  acute  or 
less  acute ;  but  to  invent  a  faculty  of  reason  distinct  from 
reason,  or  to  suggest  that  man  can  feel  or  think  otherwise 
than  with  his  brain,  is  to  darken  counsel  with  a  multitude 
of  words. 

There  is  no  ground  for  the  assertion  that  a  spiritual 
faculty  exists  apart  from  the  reason.  But  the  Christian 
first  invents  this  faculty,  and  then  tells  us  that  by  this 
faculty  religion  is  to  be  judged. 

Spiritual  truths  are  to  be  spiritually  discerned.  What 
is  a  ''  spiritual  truth  "  ?  It  is  neither  more  nor  less  than 
a  mental  idea.  It  is  an  idea  originating  in  the  brain,  and 
it  can  only  be  "  discerned,"  or  judged,  or  understood,  by 
an  act  of  reason  performed  by  the  brain. 

2l8 


SPIRITUAL  DISCERNMENT  219 

The  word  "  spiritual,"  as  used  in  this  connection,  is  a 
mere  affectation.  It  impHes  that  the  idea  (which  Arch- 
deacon Wilson  calmly  dubs  a  ''  truth  ")  is  so  exalted,  or 
so  refined,  that  the  reason  is  too  gross  to  appreciate  it. 
'  John  says :  "  I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth/* 
Thomas  asks :  "  How  do  you  know  ?  "  John  says : 
"  Because  I  feel  \V'  Thomas  answers :  "  But  that  is 
only  a  rhapsodical  expression  of  a  woman's  reason :  '  I 
know  because  I  know.'  You  say  your  religion  is  true 
because  you  feel  it  is  true.  I  might  as  well  say  it  is  not 
true  because  I  feel  that  it  is  not  true." 

Then  John  becomes  mystical.  He  says :  *'  Spiritual 
truths  must  be  spiritually  discerned."  Thomas,  who  be- 
lieves that  all  truths,  and  all  errors,  must  be  tried  by  the 
reason,  shrugs  his  shoulders  irreverently,  and  departs. 

Now,  this  mystical  jargon  has  always  been  a  favorite 
weapon  of  theologians,  and  it  is  a  very  effective  weapon 
against  weak-minded,  or  ignorant,  or  superstitious,  or 
very  emotional  men. 

We  must  deal  with  this  deception  sternly.  We  must 
deny  that  the  human  reason,  which  we  know  to  be  a  fact, 
is  inferior  to  a  postulated  '*  spiritual "  faculty  which  has 
no  existence.  We  must  insist  that  to  make  the  brain 
the  slave  of  a  brain-created  idea  is  as  foolish  as  to  sub- 
ordinate the  substance  to  the  shadow. 

John  declares  that  "  God  is  love,"  Thomas  asks  him 
how  he  knows.  John  replies  that  it  is  a  "  spiritual  truth," 
which  must  be  "  spiritually  discerned."  Thomas  says : 
"  It  is  not  spiritual,  and  it  is  not  true.  It  is  a  mere  fig- 
ment of  the  brain."  John  replies :  "  You  are  incapable 
of  judging:  you  are  spiritually  blind."  Thomas  says: 
**  My  friend,  you  are  incapable  of  reasoning :  you  are 
mentally  halt  and  lame."  John  says  Thomas  is  a  "  fel- 
low of  no  delicacy." 


220  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

I  think  there  is  much  to  be  said  in  excuse  for  Thomas. 
I  think  it  is  rather  cool  of  John  to  invent  a  faculty  of 
"  spiritual  discernment,"  and  then  to  tell  Thomas  that  he 
(Thomas)  does  not  possess  that  faculty. 

That  is  how  Archdeacon  Wilson  uses  me.  In  a  ser- 
mon at  Rochdale  he  is  reported  to  have  spoken  as  fol- 
lows: 

As  regards  the  first  axiom,  the  archdeacon  reaffirmed  his 
declaration  as  to  Mr.  Blatchford's  disqualification  for  such  a 
controversy.  .  .  .  Whether  Mr.  Blatchford  recognized  the 
fact  or  not,  it  was  true  that  there  was  a  faculty  among  men 
which,  in  its  developed  state,  was  as  distinct,  as  unequally  dis- 
tributed, as  mysterious  in  its  origin  and  in  its  distribution,  as 
was  the  faculty  for  pure  mathematics,  for  music,  for  meta- 
physics, or  for  research.  They  might  call  it  the  devotional  or 
religious  faculty.  Just  as  there  were  rnen  whose  faculties  of 
insight  amounted  to  genius  in  other  regions  of  mental  activity, 
so  there  were  spiritual  geniuses,  geniuses  in  the  region  in  which 
man  holds  communion  with  God,  and  from  this  region  these 
who  had  never  developed  the  faculty  were  debarred.  One  who 
was  not  devotional,  not  humble,  not  gentle  in  his  treatment  of 
the  beliefs  of  others,  one  who  could  lightly  ridicule  the  ele- 
mentary forms  of  belief  which  had  corresponded  to  the  lower 
stages  of  culture,  past  and  present,  was  not  likely  to  do  good 
in  a  religious  controversy. 

Here  is  the  tyranny  of  language,  indeed!  Here  is  a 
farrago  of  myths  and  symbols.  "  There  is  a  faculty  — 
we  may  call  it  the  devotional  or  religious  faculty  —  there 
are  geniuses  in  the  region  in  which  man  holds  communion 
with  God  " ! 

Why,  the  good  archdeacon  talks  of  the  "region  in 
which  man  holds  communion  with  God  "  as  if  he  were 
talking  of  the  telephone  exchange.  He  talks  of  God  as 
if  he  were  talking  of  the  Postmaster-General.  He  postu- 
lates a  God,  and  he  postulates  a  region,  and  he  postulates 
a  communication,  and  then  talks  about  all  these  postu- 
lates as  if  they  were  facts.  I  protest  against  this  mys- 
tical, transcendental  rhetoric.    It  is  not  argument. 


SPIRITUAL  DISCERNMENT  221 

Who  has  seen  God  ?  Who  has  entered  that  "  re- 
gion "  ?     Who  has  communicated  with  God  ? 

There  is  in  most  men  a  desire,  in  some  men  a  passion, 
for  what  is  good.  In  some  men  this  desire  is  weak,  in 
others  it  is  strong.  In  some  it  takes  the  form  of  devo- 
tion to  "  God,"  in  others  it  takes  the  form  of  devotion 
to  men.  In  some  it  is  colored  by  imagination,  or  dis- 
torted by  a  love  of  the  marvelous ;  in  others  it  is  lighted 
by  reason,  and  directed  by  love  of  truth.  But  whether 
a  man  devotes  himself  to  God  and  to  prayer,  or  devotes 
himself  to  man  and  to  politics  or  science,  he  is  actuated 
by  the  same  impulse  —  by  the  desire  for  what  is  good. 

John  says :  "  I  feel  that  there  is  a  God,  and  I  worship 
Him."  Thomas  says :  "  I  do  not  know  whether  or  not 
there  is  a  God,  and  if  there  is,  He  does  not  need  my 
adoration.  But  I  know  there  are  men  in  darkness,  and 
women  in  trouble,  and  children  in  pain,  and  I  know  they 
do  need  my  love  and  my  help.  I  therefore  will  not  pray ; 
but  I  will  work." 

To  him  says  John :  "  You  are  a  fellow  of  no  delicacy. 
You  lack  spiritual  discernment.  You  are  disqualified 
for  the  expression  of  any  opinion  on  spiritual  truths." 
This  is  what  John  calls  "  humility,"  and  "  gentle  treat- 
ment of  the  beliefs  of  others."  But  Thomas  calls  it  un- 
conscious humor. 

Really,  Archdeacon  Wilson's  claim  that  only  those 
possessing  spiritual  discernment  can  discern  spiritual 
truths  means  no  more  than  that  those  who  cannot  believe 
in  religion  do  not  believe  in  religion,  or  that  a  man 
whose  reason  tells  him  religion  is  not  true  is  incapable 
of  believing  religion  is  true.  But  what  he  means  it  to 
mean  is  that  a  man  whose  reason  rejects  religion  is  unfit 
to  criticise  religion,  and  that  only  those  who  accept  re- 


222  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

ligion  as  true  are  qualified  to  express  an  opinion  as  to  its 
truth.  He  might  as  well  claim  that  the  only  person 
qualified  to  criticise  the  Tory  Party  is  the  person  who  has 
the  faculty  for  discerning  Tory  truth. 

My  claim  is  that  ideas  relating  to  spiritual  things  must 
be  weighed  by  the  same  faculties  as  ideas  relating  to  ma- 
terial things.  That  is  to  say,  man  can  only  judge  in 
religious  matters  as  he  judges  in  all  other  matters,  by  his 
reason. 

I  do  not  say  that  all  men  have  the  same  kind  or  quan- 
tity of  reason.  What  I  say  is,  that  a  man  with  a  good 
intellect  is  a  better  judge  on  religious  matters  than  a  man 
with  an  inferior  intellect;  and  that  by  reason,  and  by 
reason  alone,  can  truth  of  any  kind  be  discerned. 

The  archdeacon  speaks  of  spiritual  geniuses,  "  geniuses 
in  the  region  in  which  man  holds  communion  with 
God."  The  Saints,  for  example.  Well,  if  the  Saints 
were  geniuses  in  matters  religious,  the  Saints  ought  to 
have  been  better  judges  of  spiritual  truth  than  other 
men.  But  was  it  so?  The  Saints  believed  in  angels, 
and  devils,  and  witches,  and  hell-fire,  and  Jonah,  and  the 
Flood ;  in  demoniacal  possession,  in  the  working  of  mira- 
cles by  the  bones  of  dead  martyrs;  the  Saints  accepted 
David  and  Abraham  and  Moses  as  men  after  God's  own 
heart. 

Many  of  the  most  spiritually  gifted  Christians  do  not 
believe  in  these  things  any  longer.  The  Saints,  then, 
were  mistaken.  They  were  mistaken  about  these  spir- 
itual matters  in  which  they  are  alleged  to  have  been 
specially  gifted. 

We  do  not  believe  in  sorcerers,  in  witches,  in  miracle- 
working  relics,  in  devils,  and  eternal  fire  and  brimstone. 
Why?  Because  science  has  killed  those  errors.  What 
is   science?    It  is  reason   applied  to  knowledge.    The 


SPIRITUAL  DISCERNMENT  223 

faculty  of  reason,  then,  has  excelled  this  boasted  faculty 
of  spiritual  discernment  in  its  own  religious  sphere. 

It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  examples. 

Jeremy  Taylor  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and  spir- 
itual of  our  divines.  But  his  spiritual  perception,  as 
evidenced  in  his  works,  was  fearfully  at  fault.  He  be- 
lieved in  hell-fire,  and  in  hell-fire  for  all  outside  the  pale 
of  the  Christian  Church.  And  he  was  afraid  of  God, 
and  afraid  of  death. 

Archdeacon  Wilson  denies  to  us  this  faculty  of  spir- 
itual perception.  Very  well.  But  I  have  enough  mental 
acuteness  to  see  that  the  religion  of  Jeremy  Taylor  was 
cowardly,  and  gloomy,  and  untrue. 

Luther  and  Wesley  were  spiritual  geniuses.  They 
both  believed  in  witchcraft.  Luther  believed  in  burning 
heretics.  Wesley  said  if  we  gave  up  belief  in  witch- 
craft we  must  give  up  belief  in  the  Bible.  Luther  and 
Wesley  were  mistaken:  their  spiritual  discernment  had 
led  them  wrong.  Their  superstition  and  cruelty  were 
condemned  by  humanity  and  common  sense. 

To  me  it  appears  that  these  men  of  "  spiritual  discern- 
ment "  are  really  men  of  abnormally  credulous  and  emo- 
tional natures :  men  too  weak  to  face  the  facts. 

We  cannot  allow  the  Christians  to  hold  this  position 
unchallenged.  I  regard  the  religious  plane  as  a  lower 
one  than  our  own.  I  think  the  Christian  idea  of  God  is 
even  now,  after  two  thousand  years  of  evolution,  a  very 
mean  and  weak  one. 

I  cannot  love  nor  revere  a  "  Heavenly  Father  "  whose 
children  have  to  pray  to  Him  for  what  they  need,  or  for 
pardon  for  their  sins.  My  children  do  not  need  to  pray 
to  me  for  food  or  forgiveness ;  and  I  am  a  mere  earthly 
father.  Yet  Christ,  who  came  direct  from  God  —  who 
was  God  —  to  teach  all  men  God's  will,  directed  us  to 


224  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

pray  to  God  for  our  daily  bread,  for  forgiveness  of  our 
trespasses  against  Him,  and  that  He  would  not  lead  us 
into  temptation!  Imagine  a  father  leading  his  children 
into  temptation! 

What  is  there  so  superior  or  so  meritorious  in  the  at- 
titude of  a  religious  man  towards  God?  This  good  man 
prays :  for  what  ?  He  prays  that  something  be  given  to 
him,  or  forgiven  to  him.  He  prays  for  gain  or  fear.  Is 
that  so  lofty  and  so  noble? 

But  you  will  say :  "  It  is  not  all  for  gain  or  for  fear. 
He  prays  for  love:  because  he  loves  God."  But  is  not 
this  like  sending  flowers  and  jewels  to  the  king?  The 
king  is  so  rich  already :  but  there  are  many  poor  outside 
his  gates.  God  is  not  in  need  of  our  love:  some  of 
God's  children  are  in  need.  Truly,  these  high  ideals  are 
very  curious. 

Mr.  Augustine  Birrell,  in  his  Miscellanies,  quotes  a 
passage  from  "  Lux  Mundi " ;  and  although  I  cannot 
find  it  in  that  book,  it  is  too  good  to  lose : 

^  If  this  be  the  relation  of  faith  to  reason,  we  see  the  explana- 
tion of  what  seems  at  first  sight  to  the  philosopher  to  be  the 
most  irritating  and  hypocritical  characteristic  of  faith.  It  is 
always  shifting  its  intellectual  defenses.  It  adopts  this  or  that 
fashion  of  philosophical  apology,  and  then,  when  this  is  shat- 
tered by  some  novel  scientific  generalization  of  faith,  probably 
after  a  passionate  struggle  to  retain  the  old  position,  suddenly 
and  gayly  abandons  it,  and  takes  up  the  new  formula,  just  as 
if  nothing  had  happened.  It  discovers  that  the  new  formula  is 
admirably  adapted  for  its  purposes,  and  is,  in  fact,  what  it  al- 
ways meant,  only  it  has  unfortunately  omitted  to  mention  it. 
So  it  goes  on,  again  and  again;  and  no  wonder  that  the  philos- 
ophers growl  at  those  humbugs,  the  clergy. 

That  passage  has  a  rather  sinister  bearing  upon  the 
Christian's  claim  for  spiritual  genius. 

But,  indeed,  the  claim  is  not  admissible.  The 
Churches  have  taught  many  errors.  Those  errors  have 
been  confuted  by  skepticism  and  science.     It  is  no  thanks 


SPIRITUAL  DISCERNMENT  225 

to  spiritual  discernment  that  we  stand  where  we  do.  It 
is  to  reason  we  owe  our  advance ;  and  what  a  great  ad- 
vance it  is.  We  have  got  rid  of  Hell,  we  have  got  rid 
of  the  Devil,  we  have  got  rid  of  the  Christian  champion- 
ship of  slavery,  of  witch-murder,  of  martyrdom,  perse- 
cution, and  torture ;  we  have  destroyed  the  claims  for  the 
infallibility  of  the  Scriptures,  and  have  taken  the  fetters 
of  the  Church  from  the  limbs  of  Science  and  Thought, 
and  before  long  we  shall  have  demoHshed  the  behef  in 
miracles.  The  Christian  religion  has  defended  all  these 
dogmas,  and  has  done  inhuman  murder  in  defense  of 
them;  and  has  been  wrong  in  every  instance,  and  has 
been  finally  defeated  in  every  instance.  Steadily  and 
continually  the  Church  has  been  driven  from  its  posi- 
tions. It  is  still  retreating,  and  we  are  not  to  be  per- 
suaded to  abandon  our  attack  by  the  cool  assurance  that 
we  are  mentally  unfit  to  judge  in  spiritual  matters.  Spir- 
itual Discernment  has  been  beaten  by  reason  in  the  past, 
and  will  be  beaten  by  reason  in  the  future.  It  is  facts 
and  logic  we  want,  not  rhetoric. 


SOME  OTHER  APOLOGIES 

Christianity,  we  are  told,  vastly  improved  the  relations 
of  rich  and  poor. 

How  comes  it,  then,  that  the  treatment  of  the  poor  by 
the  rich  is  better  amongst  Jews  than  amongst  Chris- 
tians? How  did  it  fare  with  the  poor  all  over  Europe 
in  the  centuries  when  Christianity  was  at  the  zenith  of 
its  power  ?  How  is  it  we  have  twelve  millions  of  Chris- 
tians on  the  verge  of  starvation  in  England  to-day,  with 
a  Church  rolling  in  wealth  and  an  aristocracy  decadent 
from  luxury  and  self-indulgence?  How  is  it  that  the 
gulf  betwixt  rich  and  poor  in  such  Christian  capitals  as 
New  York,  London,  and  Paris  is  so  wide  and  deep? 

Christianity,  we  are  told,  first  gave  to  mankind  the 
gospel  of  peace.  Christianity  did  not  bring  peace,  but  a 
sword.  The  Crusades  were  holy  wars.  The  wars  in 
the  Netherlands  were  holy  wars.  The  Spanish  Armada 
was  a  holy  expedition.  Some  of  these  holy  wars  lasted 
for  centuries  and  cost  millions  of  human  lives.  Most  of 
them  were  remarkable  for  the  barbarities  and  cruelties 
of  the  Christian  priests  and  soldiers. 

From  the  beginning  of  its  power  Christianity  has  been 
warlike,  violent,  and  ruthless.  To-day  Europe  is  an 
armed  camp,  and  it  is  not  long  since  the  Christian  Kaiser 
ordered  his  troops  to  give  no  quarter  to  the  Chinese. 

There  has  never  been  a  Christian  nation  as  peaceful  as 
the  Indians  and  Burmese  under  Buddhism.  It  was  King 
Asoka,  and  not  Jesus  Christ  or  St.  Paul,  who  first  taught 

226 


SOME  OTHER  APOLOGIES  227 

and  first  established  a  reign  of  national  and  international 
peace. 

To-day  the  peace  of  the  world  is  menaced,  not  by  the 
Buddhists,  the  Parsees,  the  Hindoos  or  the  Confucians, 
but  by  Christian  hunger  for  territory,  Christian  lust  of 
conquest,  Christian  avarice  for  the  opening  up  of  "  new 
markets,"  Christian  thirst  for  military  glory,  and  jealousy 
and  envy  amongst  the  Christian  powers  one  of  another. 

Christianity,  we  are  told,  originated  the  Christlike  type 
of  character.  The  answer  stares  us  in  the  face.  How 
can  we  account  for  King  Asoka,  how  can  we  account  for 
Buddha? 

Christianity,  we  are  told,  originated  hospitals. 

Hospitals  were  founded  two  centuries  before  Christ  by 
King  Asoka  in  India. 

Christianity,  we  are  told,  first  broke  down  the  barrier 
between  Jew  and  Gentile ! 

How  have  Christians  treated  Jews  for  fifteen  centuries? 
How  are  Christians  treating  Jews  to-day  in  Holy  Rus- 
sia? How  long  is  it  since  Jews  were  granted  full  rights 
of  citizenship  in  Christian  England? 

All  this,  the  Christian  will  say,  applies  to  the  false  and 
not  to  the  true  Christianity. 

Let  us  look,  then,  for  an  instant  at  the  truest  and  best 
form  of  Christianity,  and  ask  what  it  is  doing?  It  is 
preaching  about  Sin,  Sin,  Sin.  It  is  praying  to  God  to 
do  for  Man  what  Man  ought  to  do  for  himself,  what 
Man  can  do  for  himself,  what  Man  must  do  for  himself ; 
for  God  has  never  done  it,  and  will  never  do  it  for 
him. 

And  this  fault  in  the  Christian  —  the  highest  and 
truest  Christian  —  attitude  towards  life  does  not  He  in 
the  Christians :  it  lies  in  the  truest  and  best  form  of  their 
religion. 


228  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

It  is  the  belief  in  Free  Will,  in  Sin,  and  in  a  Heavenly 
Father,  and  a  Future  recompense  that  leads  the  Christian 
wrong,  and  causes  him  to  mistake  the  shadow  for  the 
substance. 


COUNSELS  OF  DESPAIR 

"  If  you  take  from  us  our  religion,"  say  the  Christians, 
"  what  have  you  to  offer  but  counsels  of  despair?  "  This 
seems  to  me  rather  a  commercial  way  of  putting  the  case, 
and  not  a  very  moral  one.  Because  a  moral  man  would 
not  say :  "  If  I  give  up  my  religion,  what  will  you  pay 
me  ?  "  He  would  say :  "  I  will  never  give  up  my  re- 
ligion unless  I  am  convinced  it  is  not  true/'  To  a  moral 
man  the  truth  would  matter,  but  the  cost  would  not.  To 
ask  what  one  may  gain  is  to  show  an  absence  of  all  real 
religious  feeling. 

The  feeling  of  a  truly  religious  man  is  the  feeling  that, 
cost  what  it  may,  he  must  do  right.  A  religiously  minded 
man  could  not  profess  a  religion  which  he  did  not  believe 
to  be  true.  To  him  the  vital  question  would  be,  not 
"  What  will  you  give  me  to  desert  my  colors  ? "  but 
"What  is  the  truth f' 

But,  besides  being  immoral,  the  demand  is  unreason- 
able. If  I  say  that  a  religion  is  untrue,  the  believer  has 
a  perfect  right  to  ask  me  for  proofs  of  my  assertion ;  but 
he  has  no  right  to  ask  me  for  a  new  promise.  Suppose 
I  say  this  thing  is  not  true,  and  to  believe  anything  which 
is  untrue  is  useless.  Then,  the  believer  may  justly  de- 
mand my  reasons.  But  he  has  no  right  to  ask  me  for  a 
new  dream  in  place  of  the  old  one.  I  am  not  a  prophet, 
with  promises  of  crowns  and  glories  in  my  gift. 

But  yet  I  will  answer  this  queer  question  as  fully  as  I 
can. 

I  do  not  say  there  is  no  God.  I  do  not  say  there  is  no 
229 


230  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

"  Heaven,"  nor  that  the  soul  is  not  immortal.  There  is 
not  enough  evidence  to  justify  me  in  making  such  asser- 
tions. 

I  only  say,  on  those  subjects,  that  I  do  not  know. 

I  do  not  know  about  those  things.  There  may  be  a 
God,  there  may  be  a  "  Heaven,"  there  may  be  an  immor- 
tal soul.  And  a  man  might  accept  all  I  say  about  re- 
ligion without  giving  up  any  hope  his  faith  my  bid  him 
hold  as  to  a  future  life. 

As  to  those  "  counsels  of  despair  " :  the  question  puz- 
zles me.     Despair  of  what? 

Let  me  put  the  matter  as  I  see  it.  I  think  sometimes, 
in  a  dubious  way,  that  perhaps  there  may  be  a  life  beyond 
the  grave.  And  that  is  interesting.  But  I  think  my 
stronger,  and  deeper,  and  more  permanent  feeling  is,  that 
when  we  die  we  die  finally,  and  for  us  there  is  no  more 
life  at  all.  That  is,  I  suppose,  my  real  belief  —  or  suppo- 
sition. But  do  I  despair?  Why  should  I?  The  idea 
of  immortality  does  not  elate  me  very  much.  As  I  said 
just  now,  it  is  interesting.  But  I  am  not  excited  about 
it.  If  there  is  another  innings,  we  will  go  in  and  play 
our  best ;  and  we  hope  we  shall  be  very  much  better  and 
kinder  than  we  have  been.  But  if  it  is  sleep :  well,  sleep 
is  rest,  and  as  I  feel  that  I  have  had  a  really  good  time, 
on  the  whole,  I  should  consider  it  greedy  to  cry  because 
I  could  not  have  it  all  over  again.  That  is  how  I  feel 
about  it.  Despair  ?  I  am  one  of  the  happiest  old  fogies 
in  all  London.  I  have  found  life  agreeable  and  amus- 
ing, and  I'm  glad  I  came.  But  I  am  not  so  infatuated 
with  life  that  I  should  care  to  go  back  and  begin  it  all 
again.  And  though  a  new  start,  in  a  new  world,  would 
be  —  yes,  interesting  —  I  am  not  going  to  howl  because 
old  Daddy  Death  says  it  is  bedtime.  I  think  somebody, 
or  something,  has  been  very  good  to  allow  me  to  come  in 


COUNSELS  OF  DESPAIR  ^31 

and  see  the  fun,  and  stay  so  long,  especially  as  I  came 
in,  so  to  speak,  "  on  my  face."  But  to  beg  for  another 
invitation  would  be  cheeky.  Some  of  you  want  such  a 
lot  for  nothing. 

"  But,"  you  may  say,  "  the  poor,  the  failures,  the 
wretched  —  what  of  them  ?  "  And  I  answer :  "  Ah ! 
that  is  one  of  the  weak  points  of  your  religion,  not  of 
mine."  Consider  these  unhappy  ones,  what  do  you  offer 
them?  You  offer  them  an  everlasting  bliss,  not  because 
they  were  starved  or  outraged  here  —  not  at  all.  For 
your  religion  admits  the  probability  that  those  who  came 
into  this  world  worst  equipped,  who  have  here  been  most 
unfortunate,  and  to  whom  God  and  man  have  behaved 
most  unjustly,  will  stand  a  far  greater  chance  of  a  future 
of  woe  than  of  happiness. 

No.  According  to  your  religion,  those  of  the  poor  or 
the  weak  who  get  to  Heaven  will  get  there,  not  because 
they  have  been  wronged  and  must  be  righted,  but  be- 
cause they  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  can  save  them. 

Now,  contrast  that  awful  muddle  of  unreason  and  in- 
justice with  what  you  call  my  "  counsels  of  despair."  I 
say  there  may  be  a  future  life  and  there  may  not  be  a 
future  life.  If  there  is  a  future  life,  a  man  will  deserve 
it  no  less,  and  enjoy  it  no  less,  for  having  been  happy 
here.  If  there  is  no  future  life,  he  who  has  been  un- 
happy here  will  have  lost  both  earthly  happiness  and 
heavenly  hope. 

Therefore,  I  say,  it  is  our  duty  to  see  that  all  our  fel- 
low-creatures are  as  happy  here  as  we  can  make  them. 

Therefore  I  say  to  my  fellow-creatures,  "  Do  not  con- 
sent to  suffer,  and  to  be  wronged  in  this  world,  for  it  is 
immoral  and  weak  so  to  submit ;  but  hold  up  your  heads, 
and  demand  your  rights,  here  and  now,  and  leave  the 
rest  to  God,  or  to  Fate." 


232  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

You  see,  I  am  not  trying  to  rob  any  man  of  his  hope 
of  Heaven ;  I  am  only  trying  to  inspire  his  hope  on  earth. 

But  I  have  been  asked  whether  I  think  it  right  and 
wise  to  "  shake  the  faith  of  the  poor  working-man  — 
the  faith  that  has  helped  him  so  long." 

What  has  this  faith  helped  him  to  do?  To  bear  the 
ills  and  the  wrongs  of  this  life  more  patiently,  in  the  hope 
of  a  future  reward?  Is  that  the  idea?  But  I  do  not 
want  the  working-man  to  endure  patiently  the  ills  and 
wrongs  of  this  life.  I  want  him,  for  his  own  sake,  his 
wife's  sake,  his  children's  sake,  and  for  the  sake  of  right 
and  progress,  to  demand  justice,  and  to  help  in  the  work 
of  amending  the  conditions  of  life  on  earth. 

No,  I  do  not  want  to  rob  the  working-man  of  his  faith : 
I  want  to  awaken  his  faith  —  in  himself. 

Religion  promises  us  a  future  Heaven,  where  we  shall 
meet  once  more  those  ''  whom  we  have  loved  long  since 
and  lost  awhile  " ;  and  that  is  the  most  potent  lure  that 
could  be  offered  to  poor  humanity. 

How  much  of  the  so-called  "  universal  instinct  of  be- 
lief "  arises  from  that  pathetic  human  yearning  for  re- 
union with  dear  friends,  sweet  wives,  or  pretty  children 
"  lost  awhile  "  ?  It  is  human  love,  and  natural  longing 
for  the  dead  darlings,  whose  wish  is  father  to  the  thought 
of  Heaven.  Before  that  passionate  sentiment  reason 
itself  would  almost  stand  abashed:  were  reason  antag- 
onistic to  the  "  larger  hope  " —  which  none  can  prove. 

Few  of  us  can  keep  our  emotions  from  overflowing  the 
bounds  of  rea?on  in  such  a  case.  The  poor,  tearful  de- 
sire lays  a  pale  hand  on  reason's  lips  and  gazes  wistfully 
into  the  mysterious  abyss  of  the  Great  Silence. 

So  I  say  of  that  "  larger  hope,"  cherish  it  if  you  can, 
and  if  you  feel  it  necessary  to  your  peace  of  mind.  But 
do  not  mistake  a  hope  for  a  certainty.    No  priest,  nor 


COUNSELS  OF  DESPAIR  233 

pope,  nor  prophet  can  tell  you  more  about  that  mystery 
than  you  know.  It  is  a  riddle,  and  your  guess  or  mine 
may  be  as  near  as  that  of  a  genius.  We  can  only  guess. 
We  do  not  know. 

Is  it  wise,  then,  to  sell  even  a  fraction  of  your  liberty 
of  thought  or  deed  for  a  paper  promise  which  the  Bank 
of  Futurity  may  fail  to  honor?  Is  it  wise,  is  it  needful, 
to  abandon  a  single  right,  to  abate  one  just  demand,  to 
neglect  one  possibility  of  happiness  here  and  now,  in 
order  to  fulfill  the  conditions  laid  down  for  the  attain- 
ment of  that  promised  heaven  by  a  crowd  of  contradic- 
tory theologians  who  know  no  more  about  God  or  about 
the    future   than   we   know   ourselves? 

Death  has  dropped  a  curtain  of  mystery  between  us 
and  those  we  love.  No  theologian  knows,  nor  ever  did 
know,  what  is  hidden  behind  that  veil. 

Let  us,  then,  do  our  duty  here,  try  to  be  happy  here, 
try  to  make  others  happy  here,  and  when  the  curtain  lifts 
for  us  —  we  shall  see. 


CONCLUSION 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS 

I  HAVE  been  asked  why  I  have  "  gone  out  of  my  way 
to  attack  reHgion/'  why  I  do  not  "  confine  myself  to  my 
own  sphere  and  work  for  Socialism,  and  what  good  I  ex- 
pect to  do  by  pulling  down  without  building  up." 
In  reply  I  beg  to  say : 

1.  That  I  have  not  "  gone  out  of  my  way  "  to  attack 
religion.  It  was  because  I  found  religion  in  my  way  that 
I  attacked  it. 

2.  That  I  am  working  for  Socialism  when  I  attack  a 
religion  which  is  hindering  Socialism. 

3.  That  we  must  pull  down  before  we  can  build  up, 
and  that  I  hope  to  do  a  little  building,  if  only  on  the 
foundation. 

But  these  questions  arose  from  a  misconception  of  my 
position  and  purpose. 

I  have  been  called  an  "  Infidel,"  a  Socialist,  and  a 
FataHst.  Now,  I  am  an  Agnostic,  or  Rationalist,  and  I 
am  a  Determinist,  and  I  am  a  Socialist.  But  if  I  were 
asked  to  describe  myself  in  a  single  word,  I  should  call 
myself  a  Humanist. 

Socialism,  Determinism,  and  Rationalism  are  factors 
in  the  sum;  and  the  sum  is  Humanism. 

Briefly,  my  religion  is  to  do  the  best  I  can  for  hu- 
manity. I  am  a  Socialist,  a  Determinist,  and  a  Rational- 
ist because  I  believe  that  Socialism,  Determinism,  and 
Rationalism  will  be  beneficial  to  mankind. 

I  oppose  the  Christian  religion  because  I  do  not  think 
the  Christian  religion  is  beneficial  to  mankind,  and  be- 

237 


238  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

cause  I  think  it  is  an  obstacle  in  the  way  of  Humanism. 

I  am  rather  surprised  that  men  to  whom  my  past  work 
is  well  known  should  suspect  me  of  making  a  wanton  and 
purposeless  attack  upon  religion.  My  attack  is  not 
wanton,  but  deliberate;  not  purposeless,  but  very  pur- 
poseful and  serious.  I  am  not  acting  irreligiously,  but 
religiously.  I  do  not  oppose  Christianity  because  it  is 
good,  but  because  it  is  not  good  enough. 

There  are  two  radical  differences  between  Humanism 
and  Christianity. 

Christianity  concerns  itself  with  God  and  Man,  put- 
ting God  first  and  Man  last. 

Humanism  concerns  itself  solely  with  Man,  so  that 
Man  is  its  first  and  last  care.  That  is  one  radical  dif- 
ference. 

Then,  Christianity  accepts  the  doctrine  of  Free  Will, 
with  its  consequent  rewards  and  punishments;  while 
Humanism  embraces  Determinist  doctrines,  with  their 
consequent  theories  of  brotherhood  and  prevention. 
And  that  is  another  radical  difference. 

Because  the  Christian  regards  the  hooligan,  the  thief, 
the  wanton,  and  the  drunkard  as  men  and  women  who 
have  done  wrong.  But  the  Humanist  regards  them  as 
men  and  women  who  have  been  wronged. 

The  Christian  remedy  is  to  punish  crime  and  to  preach 
repentance  and  salvation  to  '*  sinners."  The  Humanist 
remedy  is  to  remove  the  causes  which  lead  or  drive  men 
into  crime,  and  so  to  prevent  the  manufacture  of  "  sin- 
ners.'* 

Let  us  consider  the  first  difference.  Christianity  con- 
cerns itself  with  the  relations  of  Man  to  God,  as  well 
as  with  the  relations  between  man  and  man.  It  con- 
cerns itself  with  the  future  life  as  well  as  with  the  pres- 
ent life. 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS  239 

Now,  he  who  serves  two  causes  cannot  serve  each  or 
both  of  them  as  well  as  he  could  serve  either  of  them 
alone. 

He  who  serves  God  and  Man  will  not  serve  Man  as 
effectually  as  he  who  gives  himself  wholly  to  the  service 
of  Man. 

As  the  religion  of  Humanism  concerns  itself  solely 
with  the  good  of  humanity,  I  claim  that  it  is  more  ben- 
eficial to  humanity  than  is  the  Christian  religion,  which 
divides  its  service  and  love  between  Man  and  God. 

Moreover,  this  division  is  unequal.  For  Christians 
give  a  great  deal  more  attention  to  God  than  to  Man. 

And  on  that  point  I  have  to  object,  first,  that  although 
they  believe  there  is  a  God,  they  do  not  know  there  is  a 
God,  nor  what  He  is  like.  Whereas  they  do  know  very 
well  that  there  are  men,  and  what  they  are  like.  And 
secondly,  that  if  there  be  a  God,  that  God  does  not 
need  their  love  nor  their  service;  whereas  their  fel- 
low-creatures do  need  their  love  and  their  service  very 
sorely. 

And,  as  I  remarked  before,  if  there  is  a  Father  in 
Heaven,  He  is  likely  to  be  better  pleased  by  our  loving 
and  serving  our  fellow-creatures  (His  children)  than 
by  our  singing  and  praying  to  Him,  while  our  brothers 
and  sisters  (His  children)  are  ignorant,  or  brutalized, 
or  hungry,  or  in  trouble. 

I  speak  as  a  father  myself  when  I  say  that  I  should 
not  like  to  think  that  one  of  my  children  would  be  so 
foolish  and  so  unfeeling  as  to  erect  a  marble  tomb  to 
my  memory,  while  the  others  needed  a  friend  or  a  meal. 
And  I  speak  in  the  same  spirit  when  I  add  that  to  build  a 
cathedral,  and  to  spend  our  tears  and  pity  upon  a  Saviour 
who  was  crucified  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago,  while 
women  and  men  and  little  children  are  being  crucified 


240  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

in  our  midst,  without  pity  and  without  help,  is  cant,  and 
sentimentaUty,  and  a  mockery  of  God. 

Please  note  the  words  I  use.  I  have  selected  them 
deliberately  and  calmly,  because  I  believe  that  they  are 
true  and  that  they  are  needed. 

Christians  are  very  eloquent  about  Our  Blessed  Lord 
and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  and  Our  Father  which  is  in 
'Heaven.  I  know  nothing  about  Gods  and  heavens.  But 
I  know  a  good  deal  about  Manchester  and  London, 
and  about  men  and  women ;  and  if  I  did  not  feel  the 
real  shames  and  wrongs  of  the  world  more  keenly,  and 
if  I  did  not  try  more  earnestly  and  strenuously  to  rescue 
my  fellow-creatures  from  ignorance,  and  sorrow,  and 
injustice,  than  most  Christians  do,  I  should  blush  to 
look  death  in  the  face  or  call  myself  a  man. 

I  choose  my  words  deliberately  again  when  I  say  that 
to  me  the  most  besotted  and  degraded  outcast  tramp  or 
harlot  matters  more  than  all  the  Gods  and  angels  that 
humanity  ever  conjured  up  out  of  its  imagination. 

The  Rev.  R.  F.  Horton,  in  his  answer  to  my  question 
as  to  the  need  of  Christ  as  a  Saviour,  uttered  the  follow- 
ing remarkable  words: 

But  there  is  a  holiness  so  transcendent  that  the  angels  veil 
their  faces  in  the  presence  of  God.  I  have  known  a  good  many- 
men  who  have  rejected  Christ,  and  men  who  are  living  without 
Him,  and,  though  God  forbid  that  I  should  judge  them,  I  do 
not  know  one  of  them  whom  I  would  venture  to  take  as  my 
example  if  I  wished  to  appear  in  the  presence  of  the  holy  God. 
They  do  not  tremble  for  themselves,  but  I  tremble  for  myself 
if  my  holiness  is  not  to  exceed  that  of  such  Scribes  and  Phari- 
sees. Oh,  my  brothers,  where  Christ  is  talking  of  holiness  He 
is  talking  of  such  a  goodness,  such  a  purity,  such  a  transcendent 
and  miraculous  Hkeness  of  God  in  human  form,  that  I  believe 
it  is  true  to  say  that  there  is  but  one  name,  as  there  is  but  one 
way,  by  which  a  man  can  be  holy  and  come  into  the  presence 
of  God;  and  I  look,  therefore,  upon  this  word  of  Christ  not 
only  as  the  way  of  salvation,  but  as  the  revelation  of  the  holi- 
ness which  God  demands. 

I  close  these  answers  to  the  questions  with  a  practical  word 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS  241 

to  eve*y  one  that  is  here.  It  is  my  belief,  that  you  may  be  good 
enough  to  pass  through  the  grave  and  to  wander  in  the  dark 
spaces  of  the  world  which  is  still  earthly  and  sensual,  and  you 
may  be  good  enough  to  escape,  as  it  were,  the  torments  of  the 
hell  which  result  from  a  life  of  debauchery  and  cruelty  and 
selfishness;  but  if  you  are  to  stand  in  the  presence  of  God,  if 
you  are  ever  so  pure,  complete,  and  glad,  "  all  rapture  through 
and  through  in  God's  most  holy  sight,"  you  must  believe  in  the 
name  and  in  the  power  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  the  only  be- 
gotten Son  of  God,  who  came  into  the  world  to  save  sinners, 
and  than  whose  no  other  name  is  given  in  heaven  or  earth 
whereby  we  may  be  saved. 

Such  talk  as  that  makes  me  feel  ill.  Here  is  a  cul- 
tured, educated,  earnest  man  rhapsodizing  about  holiness 
and  the  glory  of  a  God  no  mortal  eye  has  ever  seen, 
and  of  whom  no  word  has  ever  reached  us  across  the 
gulf  of  death.  And  while  he  rhapsodized,  with  a  con- 
gregation of  honest  bread-and-butter  citizens  under  him, 
trying  hard  with  their  blinkered  eyes  and  blunted  souls 
to  glimpse  that  imaginary  glamour  of  ecstatic  "  holi- 
ness," there  surged  and  rolled  around  them  the  stunted, 
poisoned,  and  emaciated  Hfe  of  London. 

Holiness!  —  Holiness  in  the  Strand,  in  Piccadilly,  in 
Houndsditch,  in  Whitechapel,  in  Park  Lane,  in  Somers- 
town,  and  the  Mint. 

Holiness!  —  In  Westminster,  and  in  Fleet  Street,  and 
on  Change. 

Holiness!  —  In  a  world  given  over  to  robbery,  to 
conquest,  to  vanity,  to  ignorance,  to  humbug,  to  the 
worship  of  the  golden  calf. 

Holiness !  —  With  twelve  millions  of  our  workers  on 
the  verge  of  famine,  with  rich  fools  and  richer  rogues 
lording  it  over  nations  of  untaught  and  half-fed  dupes 
and  drudges. 

HoHness !  —  With  a  recognized  establishment  of  man- 
ufactured paupers,  cripples,  criminals,  idlers,  dunces, 
and  harlots. 


242  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

Holiness !  —  In  a  garden  of  weeds,  a  hotbed  of  lies, 
where  hypnotized  saints  sing  psalms  and  worship  ghosts, 
while  dogs  and  horses  are  pampered  and  groomed,  and 
children  are  left  to  rot,  to  hunger,  and  to  sink  into 
crime,  or  shame,  or  the  grave. 

Holiness!  For  shame.  The  word  is  obnoxious.  It 
has  stood  so  long  for  craven  fear,  for  exotistical  ine- 
briation, for  selfish  retirement  from  the  trials  and  buf- 
fets and  dirty  work  of  the  world. 

What  have  we  to  do  with  such  dreamy,  self -centered, 
emotional  holiness,  here  and  now,  in  London? 

What  we  want  is  citizenship,  human  sympathy,  public 
spirit,  daring  agitators,  stern  reformers,  drains,  houses, 
schoolmasters,  clean  water,  truth-speaking,  soap  —  and 
Socialism. 

Holiness!  The  people  are  being  robbed.  The  people 
are  being  cheated.  The  people  are  being  lied  to.  The 
people  are  being  despised  and  neglected  and  ruined  body 
and  soul. 

Yes.  And  you  will  find  some  of  the  greatest  rascals 
and  most  impudent  liars  in  the  ''  Synagogues  and  High 
Places  "  of  the  cities. 

Holiness!  Give  us  common  sense,  and  common  hon- 
esty, and  a  "  steady  supply  of  men  and  women  who  can 
be  trusted  with  small  sums." 

Your  Christians  talk  of  saving  sinners.  But  our  duty 
is  not  to  save  sinners ;  but  to  prevent  their  regular  man- 
ufacture: their  systematic  manufacture  in  the  interests 
of  holy  and  respectable  and  successful  and  superior 
persons. 

Holiness  I  Cant,  rant,  and  fustian!  The  nations  are 
rotten  with  dirty  pride,  and  dirty  greed,  and  mean 
lying,  and  petty  ambitions,  and  sickly  sentimentality. 
Holiness!    I  should  be  ashamed  to  show  my  face  at 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS  243 

Heaven's  gates  and  say  I  came  from  such  a  contemptible 
planet. 

Holiness !  Your  religion  does  not  make  it. —  Its  ethics 
are  too  weak,  its  theories  too  unsound,  its  transcen- 
dentalism is  too  thin. 

Take  as  an  example  this  much  admired  passage  from 
St.  James: 

Pure  religion  and  undefiled  is  this  before  God  and  the  Father, 
to  visit  the  fatherless  and  widows  in  their  affliction,  and  to  keep 
oneself  unspotted  from  the  world. 

The  widows  and  the  fatherless  are  our  brothers  and 
sisters  and  our  flesh  and  blood,  and  should  be  at  home 
in  our  hearts  and  on  our  hearths.  And  who  that  is  a 
man  will  work  to  keep  himself  unspotted  from  the 
world  if  the  service  of  the  world  needs  him  to  expose 
his  flesh  and  his  soul  to  risk? 

I  can  fancy  a  Reverend  Gentleman  going  to  Heaven, 
unspotted  from  the  world,  to  face  the  awful  eyes  of  a 
Heavenly  Father  whose  gaze  has  been  on  London. 

A  good  man  mixes  with  the  world  in  the  rough-and- 
tumble  ;  and  takes  his  share  of  the  dangers,  and  the  falls, 
and  the  temptations.  His  duty  is  to  work  and  to  help, 
and  not  to  shirk  and  keep  his  hands  white.  His  busi- 
ness is  not  to  be  holy,  but  to  be  useful. 

In  such  a  world  as  this,  friend  Christian,  a  man  has 
no  business  reading  the  Bible,  singing  hymns,  and  at- 
tending divine  worship.  He  has  not  time.  All  the 
strength  and  pluck  and  wit  he  possesses  are  needed  in 
the  work  of  real  religion,  a  real  salvation.  The  rest  is 
all  "  dreams  out  of  the  ivory  gate,  and  visions  before 
midnight." 

There  ought  to  be  no  such  thing  as  poverty  in  the 
world.  The  earth  is  bounteous:  the  ingenuity  of  man 
is  great.    He  who  defends  the  claims  of  the  individual, 


244  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

or  of  a  class,  against  the  rights  of  the  human  race  is  a 
criminal. 

A  hungry  man,  an  idle  man,  an  ignorant  man,  a  desti- 
tute or  degraded  woman,  a  beggar  or  pauper  child  is  a 
reproach  to  Society  and  a  witness  against  existing  re- 
ligion and  civilization. 

War  is  a  crime  and  a  horror.  No  man  is  doing  his 
duty  when  he  is  not  trying  his  best  to  abolish  war. 

I  have  been  asked  why  I  ''  interfered  in  things  beyond 
my  sphere,"  and  why  I  made  "  an  unprovoked  attack  " 
upon  religion.  I  am  trying  to  explain.  My  position 
is  as  follows : 

Rightly  or  wrongly,  I  am  a  Democrat.  Rightly  or 
wrongly,  I  am  for  the  rights  of  the  masses  as  against 
the  privileges  of  the  classes.  Rightly  or  wrongly,  I  am 
opposed  to  Godship,  Kingship,  Lordship,  Priestship. 
Rightly  or  wrongly,  I  am  opposed  to  Imperialism,  and 
Militarism,  and  conquest.  Rightly  or  wrongly,  I  am 
for  universal  brotherhood  and  universal  freedom. 
Rightly  or  wrongly,  I  am  for  union  against  disunion, 
for  collective  ownership  against  private  ownership. 
Rightly  or  wrongly,  I  am  for  reason  against  dogma,  for 
evolution  against  revelation;  for  humanity  always;  for 
earth,  not  Heaven;  for  the  holiest  Trinity  of  all  —  the 
Trinity  of  man,  woman,  and  child. 

The  greatest  curse  of  humanity  is  ignorance.  The 
only  remedy  is  knowledge. 

Religion,  being  based  on  fixed  authority,  is  naturally 
opposed  to  knowledge. 

A  man  may  have  a  university  education,  and  be  igno- 
rant. A  man  may  be  a  genius,  like  Plato,  or  Shake- 
speare, or  Darwin,  and  lack  more  knowledge.  The 
humblest  of  unlettered  peasants  can  teach  the  highest 
genius   something  useful.    The  greatest   scientific  and 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS  245 

philosophical  achievements  of  the  most  brilliant  age  are 
imperfect,  and  can  be  added  to  and  improved  by  future 
generations. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  human  infallibility.  There 
is  no  finality  in  human  knowledge  and  human  progress. 
Fixed  authority  in  matters  of  knowledge  or  belief  is 
an  insult  to  humanity. 

Christianity  degrades  and  restrains  humanity  with  the 
shackles  of  "  original  sin."  Man  is  not  born  in  sin. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  sin.  Man  is  innately  more 
prone  to  good  than  to  evil;  and  the  path  of  his  destiny 
is  upward. 

I  should  be  inclined  to  call  him  who  denies  the  innate 
goodness  of  mankind  an  "  Infidel." 

Heredity  breeds  different  kinds  of  men.  But  all  are 
men  whom  it  breeds.  And  all  men  are  capable  of  good, 
and  of  yet  more  good.  Environment  can  move  moun- 
tains. There  is  a  limit  to  its  power  for  good  and  for 
evil,  but  that  power  is  almost  unimaginably  great. 

The  object  of  life  is  to  improve  ourselves  and  our 
fellow-creatures,  and  to  leave  the  world  better  and  hap- 
pier than  we  found  it. 

The  great  cause  of  crime  and  failure  is  ignorance. 
The  great  cause  of  unhappiness  is  selfishness.  No  man 
can  be  happy  who  loves  or  values  himself  too  much. 

As  all  men  are  what  heredity  and  environment  have 
made  them,  no  man  deserves  punishment  nor  reward. 
As  the  sun  shines  alike  upon  the  evil  and  the  good,  so  in 
the  eyes  of  justice  the  saint  and  the  sinner  are  as  one. 
No  man  has  a  just  excuse  for  pride,  or  anger,  or  scorn. 

Spiritual  pride,  intellectual  pride,  pride  of  pedigree, 
of  caste,  of  race  are  all  contemptible  and  mean. 

The  superior  person  who  wraps  himself  in  a  cloak  of 


246  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

solemn  affectations  should  be  laughed  at  until  he  learns 
to  be  honest. 

The  masterful  man  who  puts  on  airs  of  command  and 
leadership  insults  his  fellow-creatures,  and  should  be 
gently  but  firmly  lifted  down  many  pegs. 

Genius  should  not  be  regarded  as  a  weapon,  but  as  a 
tool.  A  man  of  genius  should  not  be  allowed  to  com- 
mand, but  only  to  serve.  The  human  race  would  do 
well  to  watch  jealously  and  restrain  firmly  all  superior 
persons.  Most  kings,  jockeys,  generals,  prize-fighters, 
priests,  ladies*-maids,  millionaires,  lords,  tenor  singers, 
authors,  lion-comiques,  artists,  beauties,  statesmen,  and 
actors  are  spoiled  children  who  sadly  need  to  be  taught 
their  place.  They  should  be  treated  kindly,  but  not 
allowed  too  many  toys  and  sweetmeats,  nor  too  much 
flattery.  Such  superior  persons  are  like  the  clever 
minstrels,  jesters,  clerks,  upholsterers,  storytellers,  horse- 
breakers,  huntsmen,  stewards,  and  officers  about  a  court 
They  should  be  fed  and  praised  when  they  deserve  it, 
but  they  cannot  be  too  often  reminded  that  they  are  re- 
tainers and  servants,  and  that  their  Sovereign  and 
Master  is  — 

The  People. 

In  a  really  humane  and  civilized  nation : 

There  should  be  and  need  be  no  such  thing  as 

poverty. 
There  should  be  and  need  be  no  such  thing  as 

ignorance. 
There  should  be  and  need  be  no  such  thing  as 

crime. 
There  should  be  and  need  be  no  such  thing  as 

idleness. 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS  247 

There  should  be  and  need  be  no  such  thing  as 

war. 
There  should  be  and  need  be  no  such  thing  as 
slavery. 
,  There  should  be  and  need  be  no  such  thing  as 
hate. 
There  should  be  and  need  be  no  such  thing  as 

envy. 
There  should  be  and  need  be  no  such  thing  as 

pride. 
There  should  be  and  need  be  no  such  thing  as 

greed. 
There  should  be  and  need  be  no  such  thing  as 

gluttony. 
There  should  be  and  need  be  no  such  thing  as 

vice. 
But  this  is  not  a  humane  and  civilized  nation,  and 
never  will  be  while  it  accepts  Christianity  as  its  religion. 
These  are  my  reasons  for  opposing  Christianity.  If 
I  have  said  anything  to  give  pain  to  any  Christian,  I  am 
sorry  and  ask  to  be  forgiven.  I  have  tried  to  maintain 
*'  towards  all  creatures  a  bounteous  friendly  feeling." 

As  to  what  I  said  about  holiness,  I  cannot  take  back 
a  word.  Dr.  Horton  said  that  without  that  form  of 
holiness  which  only  a  belief  in  Christ  can  give  we  shall 
only  be  good  enough  to  barely  escape  Hell,  and,  "  after 
passing  through  the  grave,  to  wander  in  the  dark  spaces 
of  the  world,  which  is  still  earthly  and  sensual." 

I  say  earnestly  and  deliberately,  that  if  I  can  only 
attain  to  Heaven  and  to  holiness  as  one  of  a  few,  if  I 
am  to  go  to  Heaven  and  leave  millions  of  my  brothers 
and  sisters  to  ignorance  and  misery  and  crime,  I  will 
hope  to  be  sent  instead  into  those  "  dark  spaces  of  the 
world  which  is  still  earthly  and  sensual "  and  there  to 


248  GOD  AND  MY  NEIGHBOR 

be  permitted  to  fight  with  all  my  strength  against  pain 
and  error  and  injustice  and  human  sorrow.  I  know  I 
shall  be  happier  so.  I  think  I  was  made  for  that  kind 
of  work,  and  I  fervently  wish  that  I  may  be  allowed 
to  do  my  duty  as  long  as  ever  there  is  a  wrong  in  the 
world  that  I  can  help  to  right,  a  grief  I  can  help  to 
soothe,  a  truth  I  can  help  to  tell. 

Let  the  Holy  have  their  Heaven.  I  am  a  man,  and 
an  Infidel.     And  this  is  my  Apology. 

Besides,  gentlemen,  Christianity  is  not  true. 


THE  END 


I!   I 


